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THE  EXPLANATORY  ELEMENT  IN  THE  FOLK-TALES  OF 
THE   NORTH-AMERICAN   INDIANS. 


BY   T.   T.   WATERMAN. 


\ 


Dissertation  Submitted  in  Partial  Fulfilment  of  the 
Requirements  for  the  Degree  of  Doctor  of  Philo- 
sophy in  the  Faculty  of  Philosophy, 
Columbia  University. 


Reprinted  from  The  Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore,  Vol.  XXVII,  No.  CHI, 
January-March,  19 14 


lt& 


:. 


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[Reprinted  from  The  Journal  of  American  FoLk-Lona,  VoK  X^Xyil.,  No.  CJII. 
January-March,  1514  \ 


THE  EXPLANATORY  ELEMENT  IN  THE  FOLK-TALES  OF 
THE   NORTH-AMERICAN   INDIANS. 

BY   T.   T.   WATERMAN. 

Conspicuous  among  the  very  striking  features  of  primitive  myth- 
ologies is  the  ingenious  way  in  which  tales  are  employed  to  explain 
the  various  facts  and  fancies  fai  i'iar  to  nrimitive  folk.  In  our  own 
European  folk-tales  this  function  has  been  to  some  degree  lost;  and 
in  the  cases  where  "explanations  of  phenomena"  are  a  part  of  our 
folk-tales,  the  explanations  themselves  sometimes  concern  rather 
trifling  things.  For  an  example  I  might  mention  "The  Story  of  the 
Straw,  the  Coal,  and  the  Bean,"  —  a  favorite  in  Grimm's  familiar 
"Household  Tales,"  —  which  tells  why  the  bean  to-day  has  a  curious 
seam  around  it.1  With  primitive  folk  the  case  is  otherwise.  In 
connection,  perhaps,  with  a  more  solemn  attitude  toward  folk-lore  of 
all  sorts,  we  find  a  large  number  of  stories  devoted  to  the  explana- 
tion of  serious  matters,  and  we  find  such  explanations  treated  with 
respect.  I  should  like  to  give  as  an  example  one  that  is  often  quoted, 
from  the  folk-lore  of  British  Columbia. 

The  Black  Bear  and  the  Chipmunk  once  contended  against  each  other,  the 
former  for  darkness,  the  latter  for  light.  The  Bear  cried,  "Lipa,  Lipa,  Lipa!" 
and  the  Chipmunk,  "Ma' a,  ma' a,  ma' a!"  The  Bear,  finding  that  the  Chip- 
munk was  his  equal  in  the  possession  of  magic  powers,  finally  became  enraged, 
and  would  have  killed  his  adversary;  but  the  Chipmunk  was  too  quick  for  him, 
and  ran  into  his  hole  just  as  the  Bear  made  a  dash  for  him.  The  Bear  scratched 
the  Chipmunk  when  going  into  his  hole.  This  is  the  origin  of  the  present  stripes 
on  the  chipmunk's  back.  If  the  Bear  had  managed  to  kill  the  Chipmunk,  we 
should  have  had  eternal  darkness  instead  of  day  and  night,  as  we  have  at  present.2 

This  myth  has  the  outward  appearance  of  having  been  devised  to 
account  for  certain  definite  facts.     I  do  not  think,  however,  that  we 

1  See  the  numerous  explanatory  tales  in  Oskar  Dahnhardt's  Natursagen. 
8  Thompson,  1,  p.  61  (for  full  titles,  see  bibliography,  pp.  50-54). 
VOL.  XXVII. NO.   IO3.  —  I.  I 


30585.3 


2       .*.:;•:  :*:  r. -Journal  df  American  Folk-Lore. 

need  to  assume  that  this  tale,  merely  because  it  explains  something 
very  neatly,  was  consciously  invented.  Its  undoubted  literary  merit 
as  a  tale,  for  instance,  does  not  compel  us  to  believe  that  its  plot 
was  consciously  elaborated.  In  any  case,  however,  the  explanation 
certainly  fits  into  the  plot  of  the  story  as  though  it  belonged  there. 
We  might  very  readily  suppose  that  in  this  and  similar  cases  the 
tendency  to  explain  a  certain  thing  has  had  something  to  do  with  the 
origin  and  the  shaping  of  the  tale.  In  most  mythologies  the  number 
of  tales  in  which,  as  in  this  one,  the  explanation  is  explicit  and  in- 
genious, is  very  large.  Such  tales  form  a  very  striking  feature  in  the 
folk-lore  of  North  America,  and  they  are  by  no  means  unheard  of 
elsewhere.  It  might  readily  be  assumed,  therefore,  that  the  desire 
for  explaining  one  thing  or  another  may  have  played  in  general  a  con- 
siderable part  in  the  formation  of  folk-tales.  This  is  in  fact  the  most 
popular  method  of  explaining  the  "origin"  of  myths.  The  purpose 
of  the  present  paper  is  to  find  out  whether  or  not  the  "explanatory 
tendency"  will  account  for  the  origin  of  the  native  folk- tales  of  North 
America. 

THE   METHOD. 

It  is  rather  evident  that  any  discussion  concerning  the  actual  de- 
velopment of  folk-tales  must  be  based  on  something  other  than 
ascertainable  historical  data.  A  documentary  history,  even  for  the 
development  of  our  own  folk-lore  during  its  literary  period,  is  in  all 
likelihood  out  of  the  question.  This  fact  has  been  widely  recognized ; 
and  the  writers  who  deal  at  all  with  the  history  of  folk-lore  attempt 
to  reconstruct  that  history  either  on  the  basis  of  psychological  prob- 
abilities, or  on  the  study  of  folk-lore  as  it  is  found  to  exist  among 
modern  peoples.  It  is  not  altogether  clear  how  far  conclusions  drawn 
from  present  conditions  can  be  applied  to  the  past  stages  of  history. 
Until  the  contrary  is  proved,  I  think  it  is  certainly  a  fair  assumption, 
however,  that  any  forces  we  may  discover  at  work  now  have  been  at 
work  probably  also  in  the  past.  This  idea  is  applicable,  of  course,  to 
all  branches  of  human  activity.  The  products  and  expressions  of 
human  thought  to-day  are  in  general  so  obviously  similar  to  the  pro- 
ductions of  former  peoples,  even  those  of  long-past  ages,  that  we  may 
>  assume  a  fundamental  similarity  of  thought,  a  fundamental  parallel- 
^  ism  of  mental  processes.  The  method,  it  seems  to  me,  of  learning 
about  the  past  by  studying  the  present,  is  especially  applicable  in  the 
study  of  folk-lore.  This  is  perhaps  a  good  time  to  insist  on  the  point 
that  myths  and  folk-tales  are  certainly  not  altogether  the  product  of 
"a  kind  of  thought  now  extinct,"  as  Lang  puts  it.  On  the  contrary, 
myths  are  in  process  of  formation  to-day.1    They  are  developing  around 

1  Van  Gennep,  in  his  Origines  des  Legendes  (Paris,  1907),  p.  261,  refers  to  this  point. 


Folk-Tales  of  the  North  American  Indians,  3 

such  historical  figures  as  Washington  and  Benedict  Arnold.  Abraham 
Lincoln,  for  that  matter,  is  essentially  a  mythical  character  in  the 
popular  imagination.  The  Lincoln  who  is  pictured  in  story  certainly 
never  had  any  objective  existence.  It  seems  rather  important,  then, 
in  arranging  our  ideas  about  the  origin  of  folk- tales,  to  discover,  first 
of  all,  what  is  true  of  folk-lore  to-day.  This  study  is  almost  certain 
to  supply  some  material  for  conclusions  concerning  the  history  of 
folk-lore  in  the  past. 

The  present  paper  is  an  attempt  to  investigate  the  condition  of  folk- 
lore in  one  part  of  the  world  only,  —  America  north  of  Mexico.  It  is 
conceivable  that  conditions  in  other  parts  of  the  world  are  quite  differ- 
ent. The  North  American  field  is  so  large,  however,  and  the  material 
so  varied,  that  it  seems  plausible  to  suppose  that  the  general  tenden- 
cies found  to  operate  here  will  probably  be  operative  to  a  greater  or 
less  degree  in  the  folk-lore  of  other  regions. 

Even  in  dealing  with  the  folk-lore  of  America  north  of  Mexico, 
it  seems  advisable  to  narrow  the  discussion  down  to  certain  selected 
groups  of  people.  The  material  which  forms  the  basis  for  the  study 
of  American  folk-lore  has  been  very  unevenly  recorded.  In  some 
regions  the  native  folk-lore  has  been  preserved  in  fairly  complete 
form.  Many  individual  tribes,  even  where  they  are  related  to  each 
other,  are  represented  by  rather  full  collections  of  tales.  This  is  par- 
ticularly true  along  the  Northwest  coast  and  among  certain  tribes 
(especially  the  Caddoan)  on  the  Southern  plains.  In  other  cases 
the  folk-lore  map  is  relatively  bare  for  hundreds  of  miles.  Tribe  after 
tribe,  some  of  them  very  important,  has  been  ignored  by  the  mycol- 
ogist, and  in  some  cases  the  folk-lore  has  largely  disintegrated.  This 
is  especially  true  of  northeastern  and  southeastern  North  America, 
though  perhaps  considerable  material  may  yet  be  obtained.  No  two 
tribes  have  been  more  important  in  historical  and  ante-historical  times 
than  the  Sioux  and  the  Iroquois,  and  yet  there  are  no  two  tribes 
about  whose  mythology  we  have  less  information  of  a  satisfactory  sort. 
In  view  of  this  condition,  there  is  no  apparent  reason  why  the  present 
study  should  attempt  to  include  material  from  all  the  tribes.  It  seems 
quite  feasible,  however,  in  the  present  state  of  the  literature,  and  by 
proper  selection,  to  make  a  study  which  will  be  fairly  representative 
of  the  continent  as  a  whole.  Therefore,  the  effort  in  the  following 
paragraphs  will  be,  not  primarily  to  include  as  much  material  as  pos- 
sible, but  to  distribute  the  investigation  among  those  tribes  that  may 
be  considered  typical.  We  ought,  I  think,  to  consider  at  least  one,  if 
possible  more  than  one,  mythology  from  each  of  the  seven  culture- 
areas  into  which  the  continent  may  be  divided.  The  following  list 
represents  the  tribes  whose  mythologfesliave  been  analyzed  as  a  basis 
for  the  present  paper. 


Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore. 


I.  Arctic. 

Dakota. 

6.  Plateau. 

Eskimo. 

Grosventre. 

Shoshoni. 

2.  Woodland. 

Arapaho. 

Thompson. 

Micmac. 

Omaha-Ponca. 

Shushwap. 

Abnaki. 

Pawnee. 

7.  North  Pacific. 

Ojibwa. 

4.  Southwest. 

Chinook. 

Fox. 

Hopi. 

Bella  Coola. 

3.  Plains. 

Jicarilla. 

Kwakiutl. 

Assiniboin. 

5.  California. 

Haida. 

Blackfoot. 

Yana. 

Tlingit. 

The  writer  may  appear  to  have  been  moved  by  mere  perversity  in 
directing  his  choice  in  certain  of  the  above  instances.  For  example,  the 
folk-lore  of  the  Micmac,  the  second  tribe  in  the  list,  is  in  a  sad  condition, 
—  mixed  with  European  elements,  and  apparently  in  large  part  recast 
to  accord  with  a  European  taste.  It  would  perhaps  seem  better  to 
take  up,  in  place  of  the  Micmac,  one  of  the  numerous  mythologies 
concerning  which  we  have  relatively  complete  data.  The  fourteen 
Dakota  tales  which  have  been  analyzed  in  the  present  study  represent 
only  a  small  fraction  of  the  mythology  of  the  Dakota  people,  most  of 
which  could  undoubtedly  be  obtained  to-day  by  an  observer  in  the  field. 
There  were  reasons,  however,  why  these  mythologies  should  be  con- 
sidered. The  Micmac  are  so  important  from  their  geographical  position , 
that  their  folk-lore,  it  seems,  ought  to  be  considered,  even  though  it 
exists  in  incomplete  or  in  garbled  form.  The  Dakota  are  so  important 
as  a  tribe,  that  it  seems  well  to  include  their  mythology  in  the  present 
study,  even  though  we  must  base  our  conclusions  on  only  fourteen  tales. 
A  good  many  mythologies,  on  the  other  hand,  have  been  omitted 
purposely.  When  we  have  analyzed  a  hundred  and  thirteen  Pawnee 
(Skidi)  myths  and  tales,  it  seems  unnecessary  to  consider  the  myths 
of  closely  allied  groups,  such  as  the  Chaui  or  Kitkehahki,  or  even  more 
remote  groups,  such  as  the  Wichita  and  Caddo. 

The  present  paper  does  not  pretend  to  include  all  the  available 
material,  even  in  regard  to  the  tribes  considered.  The  literature 
worked  over  for  each  tribe  may  be  regarded,  however,  as  fairly 
representative, — a  point  which  is  perhaps,  in  this  connection,  more 
important  than  absolute  completeness.  Wherever  possible,  collec- 
tions of  tales  recorded  in  some  one  definite  locality  were  considered, 
leaving  aside  such  tales  as  were  recorded  elsewhere.  By  this  method, 
even  though  the  total  number  of  tales  on  which  the  conclusions  are 
based  is  reduced,  we  have  the  advantage  of  a  complete  cross-section 
through  the  mythologies  of  a  number  of  localities.  It  ought  to  be 
clearly  borne  in  mind  that  the  whole  body  of  myth  material  on  which 
the  following  study  is  based  has  been  sifted,  and  only  those  sources  for 
any  region  brought  into  comparison,  which,  on  account  of  their  com- 


Folk-Tales  of  the  North  American  Indians.  5 

pleteness,  offer  this  cross-sectional  view.  Thus,  out  of  a  number  of 
important  sources  for  the  folk-lore  of  the  Eskimo,  only  the  tales  of  the 
Cumberland  Sound  tribes  have  been  considered,  and  selected  for  com- 
parison with  those  of  other  peoples.  The  reason  for  this  is,  that  the 
series  of  tales  from  Cumberland  Sound  l  is  so  long  that  we  can  be  fairly 
certain  that  every  important  tale  known  to  the  group  is  represented 
in  it.  In  similar  fashion  the  mythology  of  the  Haida  Indians  of  the 
Queen  Charlotte  Islands  is  represented  by  a  single  series  of  tales 
recorded  in  the  Skidegate  dialect.  The  reason  here  is,  that  the  tales 
there  recorded  represent  the  most  complete,  if  not  the  largest,  single 
series  of  Haida  myths  so  far  extant.  In  cases  where  we  have  no  long 
series  of  tales  recorded  in  one  village  or  among  one  definite  local  group, 
it  is  necessary  to  fall  back  on  the  less  satisfactory  collections  the 
provenience  of  which  is  not  specifically  recorded.  It  might  be  re- 
marked finally,  before  passing  on  to  other  matters,  that  by  choosing 
certain  complete  and  representative  sources  for  this  study,  in  place  of 
including  all  the  possible  material,  the  tabulations  in  the  following 
pages  were  reduced  to  a  reasonable  compass. 

It  also  seems  necessary  to  say  a  word  about  certain  terms  commonly 
employed  in  mythological  discussions.  I  believe  that  in  the  study  of 
folk-lore,  more  perhaps  than  in  many  other  subjects,  it  is  well  to  reach 
an  understanding  concerning  the  terms  employed,  before  a  discussion 
rather  than  after  it.  It  is  obvious,  of  course,  that  folk- tales,  to  take 
up  merely  one  branch  of  folk-lore,  may  be  analyzed  and  classified 
under  several  different  headings.  A  number  of  terms  have  come  into 
use  in  connection  with  the  different  varieties  of  narrative  which 
result  from  such  a  classification,  —  terms  such  as  "myth,"  "folk- 
tale," "legend,"  "tradition,"  and  a  number  of  other  less  common- 
place ones,  such  as  "saga,"  "Marchen,"  "conte,"  and  others.  Within 
recent  years  especially,  some  effort  has  been  made  to  restrict  the  appli- 
cation of  certain  of  these  words  to  some  one  subdivision  of  the  general 
subject.  Thus  the  suggestion  has  been  put  forward  that  all  stories  with 
a  definite  hero  should  be  described  as  "sagas,"  while  those  in  which 
the  hero  is  anonymous  should  be  classified  as  "Marchen"  or  "contes." 2 
This  suggestion  has  been  matched  with  another  one,  that  "saga" 
should  imply  a  story  which  is  held  to  be  true,  stories  which  are  told 
merely  for  amusement  being  referred  to  as  "Marchen."3  In  regard 
to  the  most  important  and  most  widely  used  term  of  all,  "myth," 
there  has  been,  unfortunately,  no  uniformity  of  usage.  To  illustrate 
this  point,  a  few  of  the  current  definitions  of  "myth"  might  be  cited. 

1  Eskimo,  2,  pp.  163-305,  518-535. 

*  Van  Gennep,  Les  Origines  des  Legendes,  pp.  21  et  seq.  Compare  Macculloch's 
Childhood  of  Fiction,  p.  450. 

3  Gomme,  Handbook  of  Folk-Lore,  London,  1890  (Publications  of  the  Folk-Lore  So- 
ciety, vol.  xx),  p.  III. 


6  Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore. 

Thus  Jevons  says1  that  "myths  are  narratives  in  which  the  doings 
of  some  god  are  related."  Van  Gennep  understands  the  word  "  myth  " 
to  imply  "stories  which  are  objects  of  belief,  and  which  are  handed 
down  through  the  medium  of  magic  and  religious  ceremonies," 2  whether 
or  not  they  have  to  do  with  gods.  The  term  "myth"  is  often  applied 
loosely  to  any  tale  of  the  marvellous.  When,  for  example,  Dixon  calls 
his  well-known  volume  "Maidu  Myths,"  he  does  not  mean  to  include 
any  one  type  of  tale  to  the  exclusion  of  the  others.  In  the  opinion  of 
Rivers,  the  term  "myth"  should  be  restricted  to  those  tales  which 
are  the  subject  of  the  present  paper,  —  tales  with  an  explanatory  func- 
tion.3 Perhaps  the  best  usage  is  this,  that  literature  becomes  mythical 
/when  it  reflects  or  refers  to  the  operations  of  nature.  In  this  sense 
'  the  word  is  used,  among  other  writers,  by  Boas.4  Admitting  that 
usage  in  the  matter  of  these  terms  has  not  become  settled,  it  seems 
necessary  for  the  student,  first  of  all,  to  avoid  using  them  arbitrarily 
in  more  than  one  sense. 

One  distinction  that  must,  however,  be  observed,  has  a  quite  dif- 
ferent basis  from  those  mentioned,  and  is  rendered  necessary  by  the 
present  state  of  the  literature.  It  must  be  remarked  that  a  difference 
exists  between  what  we  might  call  mythical  tales  on  the  one  hand,  and 
mythical  ideas  or  concepts  on  the  other. 

This  distinction  is  useful,  because  we  have  a  great  deal  of  information 
about  the  mythical  tales  of  various  peoples,  but  very  little  about 
their  mythical  notions.  There  exists  a  large  and  rapidly  multiply- 
ing body  of  material  concerning  mythical  tales,  not  only  from  North 
America,  but  from  all  over  the  world,  and  running  back  in  some 
instances  to  a  considerable  antiquity.  On  the  other  hand,  our  in- 
formation about  the  mythical  notions,  particularly  of  modern  un- 
civilized peoples,  is  very  incomplete,  and  often  lacking  altogether. 
In  the  North  American  field  especially,  the  works  which  preserve  the 
mythical  tales  of  the  native  peoples,  taking  into  account  only  pub- 
lished books  and  monographs,  number  well  up  toward  a  hundred. 
The  papers,  on  the  other  hand,  which  systematically  discuss  the 
mythical  notions  of  the  Indian  tribes,  might  almost  be  counted  on 
one  hand.  As  examples  merely  of  what  is  meant  by  a  "  discussion  of 
mythical  ideas,"  reference  might  be  made  to  the  discussion  of  Bella 
Coola  religion  by  Boas  and  of  Haida  religion  by  Swanton.5 

To  make  the  distinction  between  mythical  notions  and  mythical 
tales  perfectly  clear,  it  might  be  well  to  consider  a  few  definite  cases. 

1  Idea  of  God  in  Early  Religions  (Cambridge,  1910),  p.  33. 
8  Les  Origines  des  Legendes,  p.  28. 

1  W.  H.  R.  Rivers,  "The  Sociological  Significance  of  Myth"  (Folk-Lore,  vol.  xxiii 
[1912],  p.  310). 

4  The  Mind  of  Primitive  Man  (New  York,  1910),  p.  230. 
6  Bella  Coola,  1,  pp.  28-48;  Haida,  1,  pp.  11-37. 


Folk-Tales  of  the  North  American  Indians.  7 

Among  the  Indians  of  North  America  there  is  a  widespread  belief  in 
a  bird  which  produces  thunder  by  clapping  its  wings,  and  lightning 
by  winking  its  eyes.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  this  is  exclusively 
an  American  belief.  It  is  of  course  found  elsewhere;  for  example, 
among  the  Zulu.  In  America,  particularly  in  northern  and  western 
America,  this  belief  plays  a  very  important  part  in  the  life  of  many 
different  tribes,  and  is  a  favorite  subject  for  representation  in  art. 
This  is  true,  for  example,  on  the  Plains  and  on  the  North  Pacific 
coast.  At  the  same  time,  this  thunder-bird  does  not  appear  very 
generally  as  an  actor  in  the  mythical  tales.1  It  therefore  supplies  an 
example  of  what  is  meant  by  a  mythical  belief  or  notion.  The  wide  r  / 
currency  of  this  concept,  moreover,  makes  clear  the  point  that  a 
mythical  belief  can  develop  and  become  important  independently  of 
any  connection  with  any  particular  story.  A  further  example  of  the 
distinction  between  tales  and  concepts  is  found  in  the  belief,  appar- 
ently of  universal  acceptance,  that  the  sky  is  a  solid  vault,  and  that 
beyond  or  upon  the  sky  is  a  flat  country  very  much  like  this  one,  with 
vegetation  and  inhabitants.  This  conception,  while  not  itself  a  tale, 
affords  a  background  for  many  tales.  While  this  concept  may  serve 
indirectly  to  explain  many  things  to  the  Indian,  such  as  rain,  the 
movement  of  the  sun,  and  the  like,  it  has  of  course  no  basis  in  fact,  and 
is  another  example  of  a  mythical  belief.  A  folk  may  be  provided 
with  quite  a  series  of  such  ideas,  embodying  notions  not  only  of  a  sky 
country,  but  of  worlds  underneath  this  one,  or  of  a  world  of  the  dead, 
to  which  spirits  go  at  death.  They  may  also  have  quite  definite 
even  though  absolutely  mistaken  notions  of  the  forces  which  produce 
such  events  as  eclipses  or  earthquakes.  The  point  I  wish  to  emphasize 
is,  that  at  the  present  time  there  are  hardly  enough  complete  accounts^ 
of  these  mythical  notions  accessible  to  render  possible  a  discussion  of 
them,  or  to  afford  a  basis  of  study.  The  present  investigation  at  least 
has  to  do  only  with  the  question  of  the  part  played  by  explanations  in 
the  formation  of  tales  or  stories.  Only  that  part  of  folk-lore  has  been 
considered  which  consists  of  tales  having  definite  plots. 

WHAT   IS   EXPLAINED   BY  FOLK-TALES. 

Returning  now  to  the  subject  of  inquiry ,?namely,  the  part  played 
by  the  explanatory  tendency  in  the  growth  of  folk-tales,  several  points 
seem  to  stand  out  especially  as  subjects  for  investigation.  I  think  the 
first  question  to  suggest  itself  might  be  worded  somewhat  as  follows :  "  If 
there  are  a  large  number  of  explanatory  tales  in  various  mythologies, 

1  It  is  found  in  the  stories  of  the  Ojibwa,  Bella  Coola,  Kwakiutl,  Tillamook,  Thompson, 
Shuswap,  and  Assiniboin,  and  perhaps  elsewhere.  As  a  mythical  idea  and  in  artistic 
representations,  however,  it  is  found  among  practically  all  the  tribes  of  northern  and 
central  North  America. 


8  Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore. 

what  do  they  explain?"  The  mere  variety  of  objects  accounted  for 
through  the  medium  of  folk-tales  is  a  study  which  must  throw  light 
of  a  more  or  less  direct  sort  on  the  psychology  of  the  myth-makers.1 
I  suggest  this,  therefore,  as  the  first  appropriate  topic  for  investi- 
gation. Unfortunately,  as  soon  as  we  begin  to  study  primitive  folk- 
tales with  a  view  to  seeing  in  this  way  what  is  explained,  we  are 
confronted  with  the  absolute  necessity  of  deciding  what  is  to  be  con- 
sidered as  an  explanation.  It  is  often  hard  to  tell  whether  a  given 
passage  constitutes  an  explanation  of  a  given  subject,  or  is  merely  a 
passing  reference  to  it.  It  is,  to  be  sure,  easy  enough  to  find  a  great 
number  of  tales  which  in  their  present  form  are  unmistakably  explan- 
atory. In  trying  to  find  out  the  total  range  of  explanation,  —  that 
is,  in  trying  to  bring  together  all  the  cases  of  explanation  for  study 
and  comparison,  —  the  occurrence  of  these  doubtful  cases  offers  a 
genuine  obstacle.  It  is  actually  impossible  to  decide  in  some  cases 
whether  a  given  tale  explains  anything  or  not.  The  form  of  the 
"explanatory"  passage  may,  in  the  first  place,  be  equivocal.  In  some 
cases  the  native  informant  may  feel  very  clearly  that  a  given  tale  is 
explanatory,  without  saying  so  in  so  many  words.  It  is  obvious  at 
once  that  an  informant  might  have  felt,  possibly,  that  the  explanatory 
sense  of  a  tale  was  so  evident  that  comment  on  it  would  be  unneces- 
sary. In  such  cases,  where  an  explanation  seems  to  be  clearly  implied, 
are  we  justified  in  assuming  that  an  explanation  is  present?  This  ele- 
ment of  doubt  enters  into  our  considerations  quite  frequently.  On 
the  other  hand,  an  informant  might  conceivably  cast  a  tale  into  the 
form  of  an  explanation  without  deliberately  intending  anything  of  the 
sort.  An  actual  example  may  make  clear  the  nature  of  this  latter 
difficulty. 

We  have  three  passages  in  North  Pacific  coast  folk-lore  which  deal, 
in  almost  the  same  words,  with  the  origin  of  fire.  The  first  of  the 
passages  runs  as  follows :  — 

Raven  came  to  a  place  where  he  saw  something  floating  not  far  from  shore. 
.  .  .  Toward  evening  he  looked  at  the  object,  and  saw  that  it  resembled  fire. 
So  he  told  a  Chicken-hawk,which  had  a  very  long  bill,  to  fly  out  to  it,  saying, 
"Be  very  brave !  I  f  you  get  some  of  that  fire,  do  not  let  go  of  it. "  The  Chicken- 
hawk  reached  the  place,  seized  some  of  the  fire,  and  started  back  as  fast  as 
it  could  fly;  but  by  the  time  it  got  the  fire  to  Raven,  its  bill  was  burned  off. 
That  is  why  its  bill  is  short.* 

This  passage,  beyond  all  question,  is  explanatory.  It  gives  a  very 
definite  reason  why  the  chicken-hawk  has  a  short  beak.  Compare 
with  it  another  version  of  the  tale  from  a  different  locality.3 

1  Use  has  been  made  of  this  method  by  Rivers  in  the  article  referred  to  above  (Folk- 
Lore,  vol.  xxiii  [1012]). 

2  Tlingit,  1,  p.  II.  »  Ibid.,  p.  83. 


Folk-Tales  of  the  North  American  Indians.  9 

After  this  the  Raven  saw  a  fire  way  out  at  sea.  Tying  a  piece  of  pitch-wood 
to  a  chicken-hawk's  bill,  he  told  it  to  go  out  to  this  fire,  touch  it  with  the  pitch- 
wood,  and  bring  it  back.  When  he  had  brought  it  to  him,  Raven  put  it  into 
the  rock  and  the  red  cedar,  etc. 

We  know  from  the  former  tale  that  this  Tlingit  tribe  sometimes  tell 
this  story  to  explain  chicken-hawk's  beak.  I  should  say  that  the 
chances  are  great  that  some  such  idea  was  present  also  in  the  story- 
teller's consciousness  when  the  version  just  above  was  related.  He 
merely  took  it  for  granted  that  its  explanatory  force  would  be  felt, 
and  did  not  feel  obliged  to  point  it  out.  Nevertheless,  as  the  passage 
stands,  it  is  not  an  explanation  of  chicken-hawk's  beak;  and  a  person 
reading  this  passage  without  an  acquaintance  with  Northwest  coast 
mythology  would  hardly  suspect  that  the  story  would  so  much  as  lend 
itself  to  the  explanation  of  this  particular  point. 

Consider,  finally,  the  following  from  Haida  mythology.1 

After  a  while,  Raven  came  to  one  who  had  a  fire  in  his  house.  And  he  did 
not  know  how  to  get  his  live-coals.  And  somebody  had  bought  a  deer-skin. 
"Say,  cousin,  I  want  to  borrow  your  deer-skin  for  a  while."  And  he  lent  it  to 
him.  It  had  a  long  tail,  they  say,  and  he  tied  a  bundle  of  pitch-wood  to  the 
end  of  the  tail.  Then  he  came  in  and  danced  before  him.  As  he  danced,  his 
face  was  turned  toward  the  fire  only.  After  he  had  danced  for  a  while,  he  struck 
his  tail  into  the  fire,  and  the  pitch-wood  burned.  Then  his  tail  was  burned 
off,  they  say.  That  is  why  the  deer's  tail  is  short.  Then  he  went  into  his  own 
skin  and  flew  away  with  the  live-coals.  His  beak,  too,  was  burned  off.  And 
they  pursued  him.  They  could  not  catch  him,  and  turned  back.  He  got  the 
coals  neatly. 

I  should  like  to  point  out  that  even  this  passage,  though  it  actually 
goes  so  far  as  to  point  out  that  Raven's  beak  was  burned  off,  is  not 
in  such  form  that  we  can  be  sure  that  the  native  story-teller  felt  it  to 
be  an  explanation  of  the  shortness  of  the  raven's  beak  at  the  present 
time.  The  setting  for  an  explanation  is  all  there,  but  is  the  explana- 
tion actually  present  or  not?  The  question  is,  of  course,  whether  the  > 
native  informant  feels  it  as  an  explanation.  So  much,  then,  for  theh/S 
difficulty  of  recognizing  the  explanations  which  appear  in  the  text. 
The  obstacles  which  arise  in  dealing  statistically  with  such  material 
are  obvious.  Owing  to  the  "endless  uncertainty  which  would  result 
from  any  other  method,  only  those  tales  have  been  reckoned  as  ex- 
planatory in  which,  on  somebody's  authority,  the  statement  is  made 
that  something  is  explained.  It  is  quite  possible  that  many  explana- 
tions have  been  ignored.  The  present  paper,  however,  must  be  recog- 
nized as  a  study  of  what  is  explained  by  those  passages  which  are 
definitely  labelled  as  explanatory  by  the  native  informant.  All  other 
passages  and  all  other  explanations  have  been  ruled  out. 

1  Haida,  i,  p.  135- 


\ 


10  Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore. 

We  have  not  only  the  difficulty  of  recognizing  explanations  when  we 
see  them;  but  the  explanations  show  amazing  variability  as  regards 
their  connection  with  the  story-plot.  In  some  cases  the  two  seem  to 
be  indissolubly  connected.  For  example,  it  is  almost  impossible  to 
conceive  of  the  Tlingit  myth  of  the  theft  of  daylight  by  Raven 1  as 
anything  else  than  at  bottom  an  explanation  of  daylight  on  earth. 
We  do,  however,  find  explanatory  tales  where  the  explanation  is  very 
loosely  attached  to  the  subject-matter.  I  think  a  good  example  of 
this  would  be  the  tales  with  a  ceremonial  ending,  of  the  type  which  is 
very  common  on  the  Northwest  coast  of  America.  There  is,  for  exam- 
ple, the  much-loved  tale  of  the  person  who  meets  a  cannibal  spirit, 
and  escapes  after  a  remarkable  and  perfectly  definite  series  of  adven- 
tures, which  are  repeated  in  various  forms  by  a  great  many  tribes. 
On  the  Northwest  coast  such  a  tale  ends  very  often  by  referring  the 
use  of  some  ceremonial  object  to  this  adventure.2  Here  the  "conclu- 
sion" or  "explanation"  has  little  real  connection  with  the  story-plot. 
In  the  case  of  some  tales  the  explanation  is  so  inappropriate,  that 
the  casual  reader  could  almost  suggest  a  better  one,  —  one  more  in 
keeping  with  the  incidents  in  the  plot.  In  the  matter  of  unity  between 
the  plot  and  the  explanation,  the  variation  is  simply  enormous. 

The  explanations  occurring  in  folk-tales  differ  endlessly  in  regard  to 
style.  A  favorite  type  of  myth  in  America  is  one  in  which  the  cul- 
ture-hero comes  along  and  teaches  the  people,  for  example,  to  make 
baskets,  —  an  art  unknown  till  that  time.  Or,  for  that  matter,  he 
teaches  them  to  hold  sexual  intercourse,  or  how  to  plant  crops.  This 
niight  be  called  the  "pedagogical"  type  of  explanation.  Another  very 
important  type  of  tale  in  America  is  one  in  which  the  culture-hero 
transforms  somebody  or  something  into  some  permanent  feature  of 
the  landscape  or  into  some  well-known  animal.  Every  such  story 
is  in  a  sense  explanatory.  A  few  examples  may  be  given  to  illus- 
trate this.  Raven,  for  instance,  among  the  Tlingit,  is  pictured  com- 
ing down-river  with  the  daylight,  which  he  had  succeeded  in  stealing 
from  Raven-at-head-of-Nass.  Angered  at  certain  beings  who  were 
fishing  at  the  mouth  of  the  river,  he  releases  the  daylight,  trans- 
forming them  into  animals,  each  according  to  the  type  of  the  blanket 
he  was  wearing  at  the  time.  This  tale  is  in  a  sense  an  "expla- 
nation" of  the  animals  on  earth  and  their  appearance.  Tales  of  this 
type  are  too  numerous  to  mention,  and  make  up  a  very  considerable 
bulk  of  American  mythology.  As  far  as  they  explain  anything  at  all, 
they  involve  what  might  be  called  an  explanation  by  "transforma- 
tion." In  the  following  an  attempt  has  been  made  to  assemble  all 
the  explanatory  passages,  no  matter  what  the  type  of  explanation. 

1  See  B,  p.  311;  Tlingit,  X,  p.  3. 
1  Kwakiutl,  1,  pp.  87,  513. 


Folk-Tvles  of  the  North  American  Indians.  n 

Without  attempting  to  assume  that  all  should  be  given  equal  weight 
in  forming  our  conclusions,  it  may  nevertheless  be  said  that  such  an 
accumulation  of  explanatory  passages  of  all  kinds  will  at  least  illustrate 
the  range  of  primitive  speculation. 

An  attempt  has  been  made,  however,  to  distinguish  between  inclusive 
and  particularistic  explanations.  For  example,  the  myth  recounting  the 
adventures  and  career  of  some  culture-hero  may  include  the  statement 
that  "he  taught  the  people  all  the  arts."  Or  a  creation  myth  may 
involve  the  mere  statement  that  the  creator  "made  all  the  animals." 
Some  other  incident,  like  that  of  the  burning  of  the  world,  may 
account  for  the  fact  that  "there  are  stars"  in  the  heavens.  Such 
explanations  are  certainly  to  be  distinguished  psychologically  from  the 
minute  and  carefully  localized  tales  which  account  for  some  one 
definite  fact,  like  the  topography  of  a  certain  familiar  cliff,  or  the 
peculiar  markings  on  some  definite  animal,  or  the  movement  and 
appearance  of  some  definite  constellation.  It  would  seem  that  the 
distinction  in  such  cases  must  have  been  present  also  in  the  native 
mind,  whatever  may  be  said  of  the  other  instances  previously  referred 
to.  It  seems  well  to  pass  over  for  the  present  any  distinctions 
which  might  be  drawn  between  the  explanations  which  are  casual 
and  those  which  are  really  the  motive  of  the  stories  in  which  they  occur, 
and  also  to  ignore  for  our  present  purpose  the  type  of  the  explanation ; 
that  is,  whether  it  is  pedagogical,  or  based  on  the  idea  of  transforma- 
tion. The  study  merely  of  the  popularity  of  one  or  the  other  type  of 
explanation  would  itself  be  an  interesting  undertaking,  and  would  shed 
some  light  on  primitive  psychology.  It  cannot,  however,  be  under- 
taken here.  The  difference  just  mentioned  between  the  broad  and  the 
particularistic  explanations,  is,  however,  so  fundamental,  that  the  two 
types  of  explanation  have  been  indicated  in  the  following  study  by 
different  symbols. 

The  total  range  of  things  explained,  and  the  curious  way  in  which 
these  explanations  are  distributed  over  the  face  of  nature,  are  shown 
briefly  in  the  following  tabulation.  In  this  table  an  asterisk  indicates 
a  generalized  explanation.  Numerals  show  the  number  of  explana- 
tions of  individual  or  particular  phenomena  under  each  general  head. 
For  example,  opposite  the  heading  "Culture,"  in  the  Abnaki  column, 
the  asterisk  stands  for  the  statement,  "The  hero  taught  the  people 
all  the  arts;"  in  the  Ojibwa  column,  the  numeral  I  means  that 
a  hero  established  one  element  of  culture  (in  this  case,  wampum); 
in  the  Blackfoot  column,  the  asterisk  followed  by  the  numeral  3 
indicates  that  a  being  arranged  for  "everything  in  the  life  of  the 
people,"  and,  further,  that  three  additional  explanations  account  for 
the  origin  of  three  individual  cultural  phenomena  (in  this  case,  quill- 
work,  etc.). 


12 


Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore. 


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Folk-Tales  of  the  North  American  Indians.  13 

This  tabulation  involves  a  number  of  interesting  points.  Perhaps 
these  points  will  come  out  most  clearly  if  we  consider  the  mythologies 
one  by  one.  Taking  up  first  the  folk-lore  of  the  Eskimo,  we  find 
that  the  group  which  we  have  chosen  for  study  possesses  only  one  tale 
which  explains  the  first  phenomenon  on  the  list,  the  sun.  This  seems 
at  once  rather  extraordinary,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  there  are  nine 
tales  which  explain  the  traits  of  animals.  There  are,  however,  many 
animals,  and  only  one  sun.  The  traits  of  all  the  different  animals, 
that  differ  from  each  other  in  appearance  and  in  habits,  offer  a  better 
field  for  explanation  than  does  the  sun,  which  is  simple  in  outward 
appearance,  and  regular  in  its  movements.  One  explanatory  tale 
might,  after  all,  in  the  case  of  the  sun,  be  considered  to  meet  the 
situation  fully;  while,  in  the  case  of  animals,  each  species  demands  an 
explanation  to  itself.  Nevertheless,  I  am  convinced  that  certain  con- 
clusions concerning  the  interest  of  the  Eskimo  are  deducible  from  a 
consideration  of  what  their  tales  explain.  It  is  at  once  obvious,  for 
example,  that  they  find  animal  traits  more  interesting  than  they  do 
the  topography  of  their  country,  and  are  in  turn  more  interested 
in  topography  than  they  are  in  ceremonies  or  in  the  peculiarities  of 
the  state  of  culture  in  which  they  live.  I  am  inclined,  moreover,  in 
a  general  way,  to  extend  this  conclusion  to  their  interest  in  earthly 
as  opposed  to  heavenly  or  celestial  matters.  The  topics  in  the  first 
column  of  the  tabulation  are  so  arranged  that  the  first  sixteen  terms 
refer  to  things  in  the  heavens,  or,  more  generally  speaking,  to  cosmic 
forces.  The  last  seventeen,  on  the  other  hand,  appearing  toward 
the  bottom  of  the  column,  constitute  a  list  of  the  things  on  earth 
which  appear  in  the  tales  as  the  object  of  explanation.  If  we  now 
consider  the  total  number  of  heavenly  phenomena  which  are  explained 
in  tales,  we  find  that  they  amount,  in  the  case  of  Eskimo  mythology, 
to  only  six  in  all ;  while  in  the  same  mythology  the  tales  which  explain 
earthly  matters  reach  a  total  of  twenty-six.  I  see  no  reason  why,  if  a 
people  were  interested  in  the  heavens,  they  should  not  find  as  many 
things  transpiring  there  which  demand  explanation  as  they  would 
find  on  the  earth.  This  is  especially  true  of  the  heavens  in  the  arctic 
regions.  The  absence  of  the  sun  from  the  sky  during  long  periods, 
the  amazing  display  of  the  Northern  Lights,  seem  calculated  in  them- 
selves to  attract  comment  and  speculation.  If  a  student  approached 
the  subject  without  a  previous  acquaintance  with  Eskimo  mythology, 
arguing  from  purely  psychological  probabilities,  he  would  certainly 
expect  to  find  in  Eskimo  tales,  if  tales  are  ever  used  for  explanation, 
some  reference  to  the  sudden  and  furious  arctic  storms,  which  are  a 
matter  of  extreme  personal  interest  to  every  Eskimo,  from  their  effect 
on  the  food-supply.1     I  am  therefore  disposed  to  think  that  the  dis- 

1  See  Eskimo,  2,  pp.  460,  603. 


14 


Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore. 


tribution  of  explanations  in  the  case  of  the  Eskimo  reflects  some  very 
real  psychological  bias.  I  think  it  is  important  to  see  whether  this 
tendency  to  limit  speculation  largely  to  earthly  matters  finds  wide 
expression  in  primitive  folk-lore.  Eskimo  folk-tales  as  recorded  in 
Cumberland  Sound  would  certainly  indicate  that  the  heavenly 
bodies  and  cosmic  forces  are  not  matters  of  most  immediate  interest 
to  primitive  folk. 

It  is  not  proper,  of  course,  to  base  any  far-reaching  conclusions  on 
the  study  of  one  mythology,  or  on  the  occurrence  of  one  phenomenon 
in  various  mythologies.  I  think,  however,  that  if  a  consideration  of 
all  twenty-six  of  the  mythologies  which  are  here  the  object  of  analysis, 
bears  out  the  conclusions  we  made  concerning  Eskimo  mythology, 
we  shall  have  established  a  fact  which,  however  it  may  be  explained, 
must  at  all  events  be  recognized.  The  total  number  of  tales  which 
explain  the  various  phenomena  in  the  twenty-six  mythologies  here  dis- 
cussod,  is  shown  in  the  following  table.  In  order  to  bring  out  the  con- 
trast referred  to  above  between  the  comparative  number  of  celestial 
and  earthly  "explanations,"  the  material  has  been  arranged  in  parallel 
columns. 


SUMMARY  SHOWING  THE  TOTAL  NUMBER  OF   TALES   WHICH  EXPLAIN  THE  VARIOUS 
PHENOMENA  LISTED   ABOVE. 


CELESTIAL   OR    COSMIC. 


Phenomtna. 

Sun 

Moon 

Stars 

Milky  Way 

Constellations.  .  .  . 
Day  and  night 

Seasons 

Clouds 

Thunder 

Weather 

Snow 

Tides 

Earthquakes 

Sky 

Land 

Water 


Number  of  Tales. 
18 
20 
19 

3 
14 

5 

5 

2 
11 
10 

1 

3 

1 

6 
13 

7 


Total 


138 


EARTHLY   OR    LOCAL. 


Phenomena. 

Mankind 

Plants 

Animals 

Death 

Fire 

Topography 

Echo 

Human  traits 

Animal  traits 

Plant  traits 

Tribal  groups 

Tribal  traits 

Languages 

Culture 

Customs 

Ceremonies 


Number  of  Tales. 

15 

17 
45 
14 

6 
174 

1 
58 
356 
32 
14 
28 

6 
81 

15 
191 


Total . 


1053 


From  this  table  it  is  clear,  that,  in  twenty-six  mythologies,  the  total 
number  of  tales  explaining  the  heavenly  bodies  and  meteorological 
and  hydrographic  phenomena  is  138,  while  the  total  number  referring 
to  earthly  or  local  matters  is  1053.  In  other  words,  conclusions  based 
on  twenty-six  separate  mythologies  quite  bear  out  those  based  on 
Eskimo  alone.  The  total  number  of  "celestial"  explanations  is  only 
one-eighth  of  the  total  number  of  "terrestrial"  explanations. 


Folk-Tales  of  the  North  American  Indians. 


15 


I  should  like  now  to  look  at  our  material  from  the  point  of  view  of 
the  number  of  individual  mythologies,  among  the  total  of  twenty-six, 
as  contrasted  with  the  number  of  tales,  which  contain  explanatory  tales 
relating  to  the  various  heavenly  bodies  and  cosmic  forces. 

Let  us  consider,  for  example,  the  importance  in  folk-tales  of  one 
celestial  body,  the  sun,  this  time  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  num- 
ber of  mythologies  in  a  given  area  in  which  he  occurs  as  the  object 
of  explanation.  Arranged  across  the  top  of  our  tabulation,  in  a  hori- 
zontal line,  will  be  found  a  list  of  mythologies  so  far  analyzed.  If  we 
look  along  the  line  following  "sun,"  and  read  the  figures  which  appear 
in  connection  with  the  names  of  the  various  tribes,  we  see  that  only 
certain  tribes  explain  the  sun  at  all  in  their  folk-tales.  The  Micmac 
tribe,  for  example,  or  the  Blackfoot,  have  no  story  at  all  explaining 
the  origin  or  appearance  of  the  sun,  as  far  as  can  be  ascertained 
from  their  folk-lore  in  its  present  form.  Out  of  twenty-six  represen- 
tative American  mythologies,  about  which  we  have  fairly  complete 
information,  the  sun  is  explained  in  only  thirteen.  I  am  inclined  to 
think  that  this  fact,  if  it  can  be  substantiated  by  the  study  of  myth- 
ologies in  other  parts  of  the  world,  renders  necessary  a  reconsidera- 
tion of  those  mythical  theories  which  would  make  the  heavenly  bodies 
the  fountain  and  source  of  primitive  myth  and  folk-tale. 


Sun in  13  mythologies. 

Moon "15 

Stars "11 

Milky  Way "     3 

Constellations "     9 

Day  and  Night "     4 

Seasons "     5 

Clouds "     2 

Thunder "   10 

Weather "     9 

Snow "     1 

Tides "     3 

Earthquakes "     1 

Sky "     6 

Land "10 

Water "     7 


Mankind in  14  mythologies. 

Plants "11 

Animals "20 

Death "11 

Fire "     6 

Topography "22 

Echo "     1 

Human  traits "18 

Animal  traits "25 

Plant  traits "15 

Tribal  groups "     7 

Tribal  traits "n 

Languages "     5 

Culture "18 

Customs "12 

Ceremonies "21 


It  is  a  fact  of  some  significance  that  such  important  and  conspic- 
uous phenomena  as  the  sun,  the  Milky  Way,  the  seasons,  the  clouds, 
the  over-arching  sky,  are  explained  in  the  folk-tales  of  a  few  tribes 
only  here  and  there.  The  tales  of  many  tribes  ignore  them  com- 
pletely, as  far  as  making  any  attempt  to  explain  them  through  the 
medium  of  tales  is  concerned.  Even  such  all-important  objects  as 
the  sun  and  the  moon,  about  whose  place  in  mythology  volumes 
have  been  written,  are  explained  in  only  half  the  mythologies  we  are 
considering.  The  table,  therefore,  quite  bears  out  the  preceding  one 
in  two  important  points.     In  the  first  place,  it  gives  us  a  right  to 


1 6  Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore. 

suspect  that  something  is  wrong  with  those  mythical  hypotheses  which 
lay  all  the  emphasis  on  the  heavenly  bodies  as  the  basis  of  folk-tales. 
It  seems  quite  plausible  that,  if  the  mythology  of  primitive  people 
were  in  any  sense  based  on  the  heavenly  bodies  and  cosmic  forces, 
these  bodies  and  forces  ought  to  appear  constantly  as  the  objects  of 
the  speculative  tendency.  We  have  every  reason,  on  the  basis  of 
our  present  material,  to  withhold  concurrence  on  this  point  and  to 
investigate  it  more  fully.  The  second  point,  which  comes  out  in  even 
clearer  light,  is  the  interest  shown  by  primitive  people  in  the  traits 
of  animals  and  in  topography.  We  saw  from  the  former  tabula- 
tion that  animal  traits  are  a  very  popular  subject  of  explanation  in 
mythical  tales,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  number  of  tales  devoted 
to  them.  We  see  now  that  they  occur  with  great  regularity  as  the 
object  of  explanation,  appearing  in  almost  every  mythology  of  the 
whole  twenty -six  here  investigated.  I  should  like  to  refer  also  to 
the  extreme  interest  in  ceremonial  matters  indicated  by  the  tabula- 
tion. Ceremonial  explanations  in  certain  cases  exceed  in  number 
even  the  explanations  of  animal  traits  (see  p.  12).  This  is  true  of 
no  other  element.  Reference  might  be  made  particularly  to  the  case 
of  the  Kwakiutl  and  the  Blackfoot.  Ceremonial  explanations  also  are 
a  very  considerable  element  in  explanatory  tales,  taking  all  the  myth- 
ologies together  (see  p.  14).  They  also  come  prominently  to  the 
front  in  the  case  of  almost  every  mythology.  Adding  together  the 
explanations  which  concern  ceremonies,  animal  traits,  and  topography, 
—  all  of  them  "earthly"  phenomena,  —  we  reach  a  total  which  makes 
the  number  of  "celestial "  explanations  seem  inconsiderable.  The  evi- 
dence so  far  considered  would,  in  brief,  seem  to  indicate  that  primitive 
folk,  at  least  in  North  America,  are  certainly  not  interested  in  celestial 
phenomena  to  the  exclusion  of  everything  else.  Their  interest  in  the 
heavens  seems  to  be  of  a  very  casual  sort. 

It  seems  rather  important  to  check  up  these  results,  however,  by 
some  further  considerations,  before  placing  implicit  reliance  on  them. 
I  should  like  now  to  bring  out  the  contrast  between  the  celestial  and 
the  terrestrial  elements  in  folk-tales  from  another  point  of  view; 
namely,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  actors  who  appear  in  tales. 

The  tabulation  opposite  indicates  this  briefly.  In  working  out 
this  tabulation,  also  a  certain  amount  of  difficulty  was  encountered. 
Various  categories  had  to  be  devised  to  include  the  large  number 
of  characters  which  appear,  and  these  categories  overlap  to  a  cer- 
tain degree.  This  fact  implies,  that,  in  placing  an  actor  in  one  or 
the  other  of  these  categories,  we  must,  in  certain  cases  at  least, 
be  somewhat  arbitrary.  To  give  an  example,  animals  are  almost 
everywhere  thought  to  have  supernatural  power.  In  those  tales  in 
which  they  appear  as  benefactors  or  supernatural  helpers  of  human 


Folk-Tales  of  the  North  American  Indians. 


17 


•JIBAJO^ 

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VOL.  XXVII. NO.    IO3. — 2. 


1 8  Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore. 

beings,  are  they  to  be  reckoned  as  animals,  or  as  divinities?  More- 
over, there  is  a  certain  difficulty  in  deciding  who  the  actors  in  a 
given  story  really  are.  The  hero  of  a  tale  does  not  always  appear 
in  his  true  guise.  For  example,  is  it  always  possible  to  recognize,  in 
a  hasty  examination,  all  the  tales  in  which  the  Sun  appears  as  an 
actor?  He  may  appear  in  the  form  of  a  mortal  hero,  whose  celestial 
qualities  are  brought  out,  let  us  say,  only  at  the  very  end  of  the  story, 
or  only  implied  by  his  adventures  or  attributes.  The  issue  has  been 
met  in  the  present  instance  by  ignoring  the  difficulty.  The  tabulation 
on  p.  17  is  based  on  the  actual  condition  of  the  folk-lore  at  the  present 
time.  Unless  a  character  is  specifically  stated  to  be  the  Sun,  he  is 
not  reckoned  as  the  Sun.  I  am  aware  that  a  great  deal  has  been  done 
in  the  way  of  identifying  the  actors  in  myths  as  celestial  bodies  or 
cosmic  forces  by  their  attributes.  Without  wishing  to  enter  into  a 
discussion  of  this  point,1  and  without  attempting  here  to  formulate 
any  general  principles,  I  wish  to  say  merely,  in  regard  to  the  American 
field,  that,  after  all,  the  folk-lore  we  are  considering  has  been  recorded 
in  very  large  part  by  responsible  observers,  endowed  with  acumen  and 
curiosity.  If  any  of  the  present  folk  really  regard  a  hero  as  the  sun, 
for  example,  these  investigators  can  be  relied  upon  to  ascertain  that 
fact  and  to  call  it  to  our  attention.  The  present  study  concerns  it- 
self with  the  present  form  of  the  material  and  with  the  present  attitude 
of  the  people.  In  the  following  paragraphs,  then,  the  effort  is  made 
merely  to  look  at  the  material  as  it  comes  from  their  hands.  We  deal 
only  with  the  actors  in  myths,  therefore,  whom  the  native  informants 
are  conscious  of  as  actors. 

In  view  of  the  fact,  however,  that  the  heavenly  bodies  are  some- 
times supposed  to  be  the  fountain  and  source  of  all  folk-lore,  and  that 
a  certain  interest  attaches  to  them  on  account  of  that  point  of  view, 
all  the  characters  which  exercise  control  in  any  way  over  the  heavenly 
bodies  or  the  cosmic  forces  are  included  in  the  general  results.  There 
has  been  no  attempt  to  identify  a  given  character  as  the  sun  on  the 
basis  of  his  attributes ;  but  every  character  who  is  definitely  stated  to 
have  control  over  the  sun  is  represented  in  the  tabulation.  This 
method  has  been  followed  throughout.  If  a  character,  for  example, 
has  control,  either  by  magic  or  otherwise,  over  "warm  weather"  or 
"summer,"  the  fact  has  been  indicated  in  the  tabulation.  The  tabu- 
lation also  includes,  for  the  reasons  just  assigned,  all  those  charac- 
ters, of  which  there  are  a  good  many  in  folk-lore  of  certain  tribes,  who 
are  transformed  into  stars  or  other  heavenly  bodies  at  the  close  of  the 
narrative.  It  is  perhaps  necessary  to  say  that  the  tabulation  does 
not  purport  to  show  all  the  actors  in  all  mythical  tales.     It  shows 

1  For  an  elaboration  of  it,  see  R.  H.  Lowie,  "The  Test  Theme  in  North  American 
Mythology"  (this  Journal,  vol.  xxi,  p.  101). 


Folk-Tales  of  the  North  American  Indians. 


19 


merely  the  frequency  and  regularity  with  which  certain  chosen  actors 
appear.  The  characters  which  have  been  chosen,  however,  are  the 
most  important  ones,  to  whom  I  think  the  greatest  amount  of  interest 
attaches. 

The  results  of  this  table  may  be  summarized  as  follows:  — 


SUMMARY  SHOWING  ACTORS  AND  CHARACTERS  APPEARING  IN  AMERICAN  FOLK-TALES. 


Number  in 

Number  in 

Regions. 

Tribes. 

Number  of 

which  cosmic 

which  animals 

tales. 

forces  appear  as 
actors. 

appear  as 
actors. 

Arctic 

j  Cumberland  Sound 
I       Eskimo 

98 

8 

19 

'  Micmac 

43 

3 

20 

Woodland 

Abnaki 

29 

3 

16 

Ojibwa 

38 

9 

10 

Fox 

46 

4 

18 

Assiniboin 

98 

17 

66 

Blackfoot 

97 

21 

54 

Dakota 

14 
42 

6 

10 

Plains 

■  Grosventre 

7 

22 

Arapaho 

100 

13 

55 
34 
70 

Omaha-Ponca 

50 

9 
29 

Pawnee  (Skidi) 

113 

Southwest 

(Hopi 
\  Jicarilla 

85 
39 

8 

4 

57 
29 

California   

Yana 

21 

17 

27 

Plateau 

Shoshoni 
■  Thompson 

45 
73 

4 
11 

40 

54 

Shushwap 

69 

14 

62 

Chinook 

21 

1 

18 

Bella  Coola 

53 

IS 

27 

North  Pacific 

Kwakiutl 
Haida 

177 
102 

24 
10 

78 
82 

Tlingit 

107 

8 

66 

Chukchee 

35 

6 

14 

Koryak 

131 

10 

35 

It  is  obvious  at  once  that  a  conclusion  based  on  the  former  tabula- 
tion would  have  to  be  revised  somewhat,  in  the  light  of  the  facts 
brought  out  by  the  present  one.  The  Sun,  for  example,  plays  a  much 
more  important  part  as  an  actor  in  mythical  tales  than  as  an  object 
for  explanation.  Half  of  our  mythologies  ignore  the  Sun  in  giving 
explanations  of  natural  phenomena;  but  the  Sun  appears  as  an  actor 
in  a  great  many,  —  to  speak  accurately,  in  sixteen  out  of  twenty-six. 
It  is  perhaps  worth  noting  that  he  appears  in  the  more  complete 
mythologies,  not  in  the  fragmentary  ones.  Thus,  he  does  not  appear 
in  the  mythology  of  the  Micmac,  the  Abnaki,  the  Dakota,  or  the 
Chinook.  Reference  to  the  tabulation  will  show  that  we  base  our  con- 
clusions, in  the  case  of  the  Abnaki,  on  only  twenty-nine  tales;  and  in 
the  case  of  the  Dakota,  on  fourteen.  Altogether,  it  seems  to  be  rather 
obvious  that  the  sun  is  an  object  of  extreme  interest  to  most  primitive 
peoples  in  North  America,  though  we  must  conclude,  nevertheless,  that 


20  Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore. 

they  do  not  seem  to  feel  such  a  need  for  explaining  his  existence  and 
action  as  they  do  in  the  case  of  many  other  things  which  to  our  minds 
would  seem  less  important.  A  general  tendency  is  brought  out,  how- 
ever, which  does  corroborate  more  or  less  our  former  conclusion.  The 
total  number  of  tales  in  which  celestial  actors  appear  is  rather  small. 
Thus,  while  we  have  ninety-eight  distinct  tales  from  the  Cumberland 
Sound  Eskimo,  the  Sun  appears  as  an  actor  in  only  one.  In  fact,  if 
we  add  together  all  the  tales  in  which  celestial  actors  appear,  the  total 
number  is  small  compared  to  the  total  number  in  which  even  one  group 
of  terrestrial  actors  (animals,  for  instance)  appear.  The  contrast  is 
brought  out  in  the  present  summary  (p.  19).  It  is  quite  possible  to 
say  that  cosmic  forces  are  not  the  chief  subject  of  folk-lore,  by  any 
means,  at  the  present  time,  either  as  actors  or  as  subjects  for  explana- 
tion and  speculation. 

HOW   IMPORTANT  ARE   THE   EXPLANATIONS   IN   FOLK-TALES. 

It  occurs  to  me  that  the  role  played  by  the  "explanatory"  tendency 
can  very  easily  be  overestimated.  I  believe  the  interest  in  explana- 
tions is  not  so  predominant  in  the  primitive  mind  as  might  be  supposed. 
Here  I  should  like  to  refer  to  the  opinions  of  Andrew  Lang  as  expressed 
in  his  "Myth,  Ritual,  and  Religion,"1  and  elsewhere  in  his  writings. 
He  goes  so  far  as  to  express  the  idea  that  all  myths  are  etiological,  — 
intended  primarily  to  explain.  If  he  did  not  originate  this  idea,  he  is 
at  least  responsible  for  its  popularity  among  English  writers  at  the 
present  time.2  I  should  like,  therefore,  to  direct  attention  now  to  the 
attitude  of  primitive  people  themselves  toward  "explanations,"  as 
far  as  we  can  define  their  attitude  at  all.  In  line  with  this,  I  should 
like  to  ascertain  precisely  to  what  extent  the  tendency  to  explain  the 
world  has  actually  resulted  in  the  formation  of  explanatory  tales. 
On  this  latter  point  also  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  popular  opinion 
has  overshot  the  mark.  The  actual  number  of  explanatory  tales  is, 
after  all,  not  so  overwhelmingly  large.  We  have,  then,  two  points  to 
consider,  —  first,  how  important  to  the  people  themselves  is  the  in- 
terest in  explanations;  and,  second,  what  actual  proportion  of  tradi- 
tional tales  is  explanatory.  In  other  words,  I  propose  that  we  consider 
this  tendency,  first  subjectively  as  regards  the  native,  and  then 
objectively  as  it  expresses  itself  in  explanatory  tales. 

In  regard  to  the  first  point,  I  might  say  very  briefly  that  a  very 
wrong  idea  of  the  Indian's  attitude  toward  folk-tales  would  be  ob- 

1  A.  Lang,  Myth,  Ritual,  and  Religion  (London,  1887),  vol.  i,  pp.  122,  161. 

2  See  Gomme,  Handbook  of  Folk-Lore  (London,  1890),  p.  1  (Publications  of  the  Folk- 
Lore  Society,  vol.  xx);  Jevons,  Idea  of  God  in  Early  Religions  (Cambridge,  1910),  pp. 
33,  50;  Introduction  to  the  History  of  Religion  (London,  1892),  pp.  250,  261,  263;  Mac- 
culloch,  Childhood  of  Fiction  (London,  1905),  p.  451. 


Folk-Tales  of  the  North  American  Indians.  21 

tained  if  one  supposed  that  his  interest  was  primarily  in  the  explana- 
tions. If  any  one  fact  becomes  clear  from  an  acquaintance  with 
Indian  society,  it  is  this,  —  that  the  satisfaction  which  Indian  audi- 
ences get  out  of  the  recital  of  a  tale  is  not  an  intellectual,  but  an 
emotional  one.  Even  admitting  that  certain  tales  explain,  the  Indian 
of  the  present  time  listens  to  them,  not  because  of  a  hunger  for  intel- 
lectual satisfaction,  but  because  he  genuinely  loves  to  listen  to  a  good 
story.  In  fact,  the  absorbing  interest  which  primitive  people  take 
in  stories  as  stories  is  one  of  the  picturesque  features  of  primitive 
life.  It  seems  fairly  clear  that  the  explanations  in  folk-tales,  con- 
sidered from  the  standpoint  of  the  attitude  of  primitive  people  toward 
them,  are  of  decidedly  less  importance  than  the  novelistic  elements 
of  the  plot. 

We  come  now  to  the  question  of  what  proportion  of  mythology 
is  made  up  of  explanatory  tales.  It  is  obvious  here  that  we  cannot 
simply  count  the  number  of  explanatory  tales  in  one  mythology  (sup- 
posing for  a  moment  that  that  is  easily  done),  and  compare  it'  with  the 
number  in  another  mythology.  We  have,  unfortunately,  from  certain 
groups,  only  a  dozen  or  fourteen  tales;  while  another  mythology  may 
consist  of  a  hundred  tales,  or  even  more.  Obviously  we  must  reduce 
the  whole  to  some  common  basis.  The  simplest  way  is  to  find  what 
per  cent  of  each  collection  of  tales  is  of  the  "explanatory"  type.  It 
will  at  once  be  clear,  however,  from  what  was  said  above  of  the  dif- 
ficulty of  recognizing  and  identifying  explanations,  that  the  situ- 
ation is  rather  confusing.  It  will  also  be  remembered  that,  where 
many  sources  of  error  exist,  our  results  cannot  be  expected  to  be  of  a 
mathematically  exact  kind.  In  the  present  case  we  have  the  added 
difficulty  of  ascertaining  how  many  tales  there  are  in  a  given  mythology, 
as  a  preliminary  step  in  finding  out  what  per  cent  of  them  is  ex- 
planatory. This  step  itself  is  not  without  its  difficulty.  In  some 
cases  the  results  obtained  by  two  investigators  must  be  utilized  in 
conjunction.  This  is  true,  for  example,  in  the  case  of  the  Blackfoot, 
where  the  collections  of  Wissler  and  Duvall  contain  many  tales  which 
also  appear  in  Grinnell.1  In  nearly  every  collection  of  mythical  tales, 
whether  by  one  author  or  two,  there  are  a  certain  number  which  appear 
twice.  In  the  present  case,  where  any  investigator  in  the  field  has 
recorded  two  versions  of  a  tale,  they  must  be  combined  in  some  way, 
and  counted  but  once ;  otherwise  our  results  would  not  be  at  all  repre- 
sentative. The  difficulty  lies  in  recognizing  whether  we  are  dealing 
in  any  given  case  with  two  similar  tales,  or  with  two  versions  or  rendi- 
tions of  one  and  the  same  tale.  Where  the  various  parts  of  a  mythol- 
ogy have  been  recorded  by  different  observers,  the  difficulty  becomes 

1  Blackfoot  Lodge  Tales,  New  York,  1892. 


22  Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore. 

acute.     The  natural  differences  of  expression  which  creep  in  lead  to 
all  sorts  of  confusion  and  uncertainty  in  the  mind  of  the  reader. 

There  are  other  things,  too,  which  tend  to  make  the  subject  one 
of  some  complexity.  There  is,  for  example,  no  uniformity  among 
authors  in  the  matter  of  recording  the  long  myth  cycles  which  are 
sometimes  found  among  primitive  people.  Sometimes  such  cycles 
are  made  up  of  a  long  series  of  independent  or  largely  independent 
episodes.  One  author  will  print  these  episodes  as  so  many  separate 
tales,  supplying  merely  one  general  heading  or  label  for  the  series. 
An  example  of  this  is  offered  by  Lowie's  treatment  of  the  coyote 
stories,  in  his  paper  on  the  Assiniboin.1  Another  author  will  include 
a  large  number  of  such  episodes  as  more  or  less  clearly  distinguished 
subdivisions  of  one  tale  which  he  considers  an  organic  whole.  This  is 
the  way  in  which  Swan  ton  looks  at  the  Raven  myth  of  the  Tlingit,2 
which  really  involves  a  great  many  separate  tales  of  wide  individual 
distribution;  for  example,  the  tale  of  the  trickster  who  tries  to  " imi- 
tate his  hosts." 3  In  some  cases,  however,  the  stories  are  run  together 
in  one  continuous  narrative,  as  in  the  story  of  Mink  and  the  story  of 
Omeatl  among  the  Kwakiutl.4  How  much  of  this  is  due  to  the  native 
attitude,  how  much  to  the  scientific  editor,  becomes  a  serious  ques- 
tion. To  render  one  of  these  collections  really  comparable  with  an- 
other, the  present  writer  was  often  induced  to  break  up  a  long  cycle 
into  its  constituent  elements.  For  example,  Swan  ton's  Haida  story 
of  "Raven  travelling"5  was  broken  up  into  fifty-one  separate  tales. 
For  all  of  the  reasons  indicated,  the  present  writer's  enumeration  of 
the  total  number  of  mythical  tales  known  to  a  tribe,  or  known  in  a 
given  locality,  often  does  not  coincide  with  the  number  which  would 
be  indicated  by  the  tables  of  contents  in  the  printed  works  from  which 
the  information  is  drawn. 

Another  disturbing  element,  which  can  hardly  be  ignored,  and  which 
may  lead  to  error,  lies  in  the  fact  that  a  tale  sometimes  involves  ten  or 
a  dozen  different  explanations.  Certain  tales,  for  some  reason,  seem 
to  lend  themselves  to  the  explanatory  impulse,  and  are  utilized  to 
explain  the  most  diverse  matters.  The  question  arises,  Should  such 
a  tale  in  the  present  connection  be  counted  merely  as  one  explanatory 
tale?  Suppose,  for  example,  a  mythology  consists  of  fifty  tales.  Four 
of  these  have  only  one  explanation  each,  while  a  fifth  has  (to  take  a 
hypothetical  case)  thirty  explanations  in  it.  It  would  hardly  seem 
right  to  reckon,  under  such  circumstances,  that  forty-five  fiftieths  of 
the  tales  are  without  explanations.  Forty-five  out  of  fifty  have  none; 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  for  a  total  of  fifty  tales,  there  are  thirty-four 

i  Assiniboin,  i.  '  Tlingit,  I,  p.  80.  »  See  p.  45,  below. 

«  Kwakiutl,  3.  PP-  123-157.  216-240.  «  Haida,  1,  p.  no. 


Folk-Tales  of  the  North  American  Indians.  23 

explanations,  which,  if  averaged  up,  would  give  one  explanation  each 
to  more  than  half  of  the  tales.  Before  passing  on  to  another  point,  it 
might  be  well  to  say  that  in  the  tabulation  on  p.  25  the  total  number 
of  explanations  is  shown,  in  case  any  critic  wishes  to  use  it  in  checking 
up  the  conclusions  expressed. 

There  are  several  other  disturbing  elements,  any  one  of  which 
might  distort  the  surface  appearance  of  the  folk-lore  we  are  considering. 
Suppose,  for  example,  that  a  mythology  consists  of  twenty  long  tales 
and  twenty  short  ones,  and  that  only  the  long  tales  have  explanations, 
one  to  each :  we  should  say  that  fifty  per  cent  of  the  tales  are  without 
explanations.  But  if  we  counted  up  the  number  of  pages  of  myth 
material  involved  in  the  tales  which  have  an  explanatory  ending,  we 
might  find  that  the  explanatory  traditions  occupied  twice  the  number 
of  pages.  It  must,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  be  admitted  that  the  tales 
considered  in  working  out  the  results  below  vary  greatly  in  length. 
Some  of  the  "tales"  consist  of  only  a  few  sentences  recounting  an 
incident  in  the  life  of  some  mythical  character.  Others  are  very  long, 
and,  from  the  literary  point  of  view,  complex  narratives,  occupying 
many  pages  of  print.  It  is  a  fact,  however,  that  some  of  the  longest 
tales  contain  no  explanations  at  all.  A  short  tale  is  as  likely  to  explain 
something  as  one  of  the  longer  ones.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  explana- 
tions are  distributed  through  the  total  number  of  tales,  irrespective 
of  their  length. 

The  various  tales  considered  also  differ  greatly  from  one  another 
in  their  character  or  setting.  We  find  cosmogonic  traditions,  hero 
stories,  stories  about  the  origin  of  secret  fraternities,  stories  of  human 
heroes  who  have  supernatural  adventures  or  encounters,  narratives 
of  divine  or  human  exploits,  and  so  on  through  a  long  classification. 
Many  mythologies  are  made  up  in  part  of  humorous  or  facetious  stories 
about  some  trickster  or  other,  —  Coyote  in  the  West;  Raven  or  Mink 
on  the  North  Pacific  coast;  Old  Man,  Ictinike,  Nih'ancan  or  Rabbit, 
on  the  Plains.  The  question  that  now  arises  is  this:  In  reckoning 
the  total  number  of  tales,  and  finding  the  proportion  of  explanatory 
tales  distributed  through  them,  is  it  fair  to  ascribe  equal  weight  to 
all  of  these  classes?  What  right  have  we  to  compare  cosmogonic 
tales  with  hero  stories,  or  sacred  formulas  with  trivial  trickster  stories? 
The  answer  is  simple.  Contrary  to  what  one  might  expect,  the 
"cosmogonic"  traditions,  in  the  first  place,  do  not  contain  all  of 
the  explanations,  by  any  means.  A  very  "trivial"  tale  is  as  likely 
to  contain  an  explanation  as  is  a  solemn  religious  recital.  More- 
over, tales  which  would  appear  to  be  most  trivial  in  plot  and  in 
circumstance,  sometimes  explain  the  most  serious  matters.  One 
and  the  same  tale,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  may  serve  two  quite  different 
purposes  among,  for  example,  two  neighboring  peoples.     The  story 


24  Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore. 

of  "The  Girl  and  the  Dog,"  to  give  an  instance,  in  which  a  dog  assumes 
human  form  and  succeeds  in  marrying  a  girl,  is  told  on  the  plains  of 
North  America  merely  as  an  interesting  tale.1  Among  the  Eskimo  it 
is  told  in  connection  with  a  story  explaining  the  existence  of  sea- 
mammals,  the  most  important  single  factor  in  the  life  of  the  people; 
and  it  supplies  the  background  for  the  chief  feature  of  their  religion, 
the  seal  taboos.2  On  the  North  Pacific  coast  also  it  has  a  religious 
application,  accounting  for  or  explaining  a  certain  religious  taboo  and 
the  origin  of  a  secret  society.3  Another  example  of  this  same  general 
fact,  which  would  occur  to  any  one  familiar  with  the  American  field, 
is  the  Two-Brothers  myth  of  the  Sauk,  which  is  told  in  connection 
with  the  Mide  or  Medicine  Society.  This  sacred  tradition  is  merely 
a  version  of  a  very  common  and  quite  secular  story.4  Other  examples 
to  illustrate  the  principle  might  easily  be  cited,  such  as  the  Raven 
myth  of  the  Tlingit,  itself  partaking  of  a  sacred  character,5  but  con- 
taining incident  after  incident  which  is  found  also  in  the  ordinary 
non-sacred  folk-lore  of  the  region.6  The  religious  myth,  generally 
speaking,  is  not  at  all  different  in  its  structure  or  its  subject-matter 
from  the  non-religious  one.  The  setting  which  a  tale  may  have  is 
often  apparently  a  mere  matter  of  chance,  or  may  be  the  result  of  a 
combination  of  several  forces ;  but  the  setting  of  a  tale  does  not  seem 
to  affect  its  explanatory  value.  In  spite,  therefore,  of  the  fact  that, 
on  the  surface,  myths  and  folk-tales  seem  to  present  a  quite  diversified 
appearance  and  to  fall  in  many  cases  into  certain  well-defined  classes, 
the  subject-matter  and  the  treatment  are  throughout  quite  the  same; 
and  one  class  does  not  seem  to  have  any  more  explanatory  possibilities 
than  another.  It  does  not  seem  necessary,  therefore,  in  investigating 
the  explanatory  function  of  mythical  tales,  to  draw  distinctions  of 
which  the  native  informant  himself  is  unaware.  In  treating  of  the 
explanatory  character  of  myths  and  folk-tales,  we  may  disregard  their 
setting,  just  as  we  may  the  matter  of  their  relative  length.  The 
^  explanatory  phenomenon  seems  to  run  through  all  folk-tales,  irrespec- 
tive of  both  setting  and  length. 

The  only  other  statement  that  needs  to  be  made  in  a  preliminary 
way  is  that  the  mythologies  here  studied  were  studied  as  they  stand, 
in  the  form  in  which  they  now  exist.     Thus,  in  the  following  tabulation 

1  For  example,  among  the  Assiniboin  (p.  224). 
a  Eskimo,  2,  p.  583;  3,  p.  163. 
1  Kwakiutl,  2,  p.  401. 

*  Fox,  p.  337;  Ojibwa,  p.  35- 
6  Tlingit,  1,  p.  80,  note  1. 

•  For  example,  the  incident  of  the  hero  who  was  swallowed  by  a  whale  (Ibid.,  p.  91), 
and  that  of  the  girl  who  insults  the  bears  (p.  126).  A  still  better  example  is  offered  by  the 
inclusion,  in  the  Raven  myth,  of  the  tale  in  which  a  trickster  imitates  his  hosts  (Haida,  1, 
p.  132);  see  also  Boas  (this  Journal,  vol.  ix,  p.  2)  for  a  discussion  of  this  point. 


Folk-Tales  of  the  North  American  Indians. 


25 


those  tales  are  reckoned  as  explanatory  in  which  the  statement  is 
made  that  something  is  explained ;  nearly  always  on  the  authority  of 
the  native  informant,  more  rarely  on  that  of  the  translator.  In  cases 
of  doubt,  however,  the  given  passage  was  placed  without  exception 
on  the  explanatory  side. 


TABLE    SHOWING    PROPORTION    OF    EXPLANATORY    TALES    IN    A    NUMBER    OF    REPRE- 
SENTATIVE  NORTH  AMERICAN  MYTHOLOGIES. 


Number  of 

Number  of 

Percentage 

Regions. 

Tribes. 

Number  of 
tales. 

explana- 
tions. 

tales  with 
explana- 
tions. 

of  tales 
with  expla- 
nations. 

Arctic 

(  Cumberland   Sound 
\      Eskimo 

98 

34 

17 

17 

Micmac 

43 

22 

8 

19 

Woodland 

1  Abnaki 

29 

27 

14 

48 

J  Ojibwa 

38 

28 

19 

50 

t  Fox 

46 

16 

II 

24 

Assiniboin 

98 

32 

20 

20 

Blackfoot 

97 

86 

52 

54 

Dakota 

14 

14 

7 

50 

Plains 

■   Grosventre 

42 
100 

8 
32 

Arapaho 

15 
81 

20 
32 

Omaha-Ponca 

50 

21 

15 

30 
42 

Pawnee  (Skidi) 

113 

99 

47 

Southwest 

jHopi 
\  Jicarilla 

85 
39 

49 
40 

17 
20 

20 

51 

California 

Yana 

21 

35 

12 

57 

Plateau 

'  Shoshoni 
Thompson 

45 

54 

12 

27 

73 

in 

52 

7i 

(  Shushwap 
Chinook 

69 

60 

33 

48 

21 

24 

10 

42 

Bella  Coola 

S3 

57 

23 

43 

North  Pacific 

Kwakiutl 
Haida 

177 
102 

133 
108 

78 
44 

44 
43 

Tlingit 

107 

68 

38 

35 

Chukchee 

35 

11 

3 

9 

Koryak 

131 

5 

5 

4 

It  will  be  seen  at  once  that  this  tabulation  presents  some  curious 
features.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  evident  that  in  most  mythologies 
rather  less  than  half  the  tales  seem  to  have  any  explanatory  value. 
There  is  so  much  variation  that  it  is  hard  to  formulate  any  actual 
rule.  For  example,  the  Jicarilla,  Yana,  and  Blackfoot  mythologies 
have  more  explanatory  than  non-explanatory  tales.  In  this,  however, 
they  differ  from  all  other  American  mythologies,  in  which  the  number 
of  explanatory  tales  is  uniformly  less  than  half  of  the  total  number  of 
traditions. 

It  is  perhaps  worth  noting  that,  of  the  mythologies  named,  the  Yana  is 
represented  by  a  very  small  collection.  The  figures  for  this  mythology 
are  based  really  on  incomplete  returns.  It  is  at  least  conceivable 
that,  if  the  number  of  tales  examined  could  be  increased,  the  high 
percentage  might  tend  to  disappear.  This  is  rendered  still  more 
plausible  by  the  fact  that,  in  nearly  all  cases  where  very  large  collec- 


26  Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore. 

tions  exist,  the  number  of  explanatory  traditions  is  relatively  small. 
The  Kwakiutl,  Eskimo,  Assiniboin,  Arapaho,  Pawnee,  Haida,  and 
Tlingit  mythologies  might  be  cited.  In  fact,  there  is  only  one  excep- 
tion ;  namely,  the  Blackfoot.  Why  the  Blackfoot  percentage  is  so  high 
is  not  so  easily  explained ;  though  the  present  writer  is  of  the  opinion 
that  the  cause  is  an  historical,  not  directly  a  psychological  one,  —  a 
matter  which  can  best  be  discussed  in  the  light  of  certain  facts  to  be 
brought  out  later. 

Even  leaving  aside  the  exceptional  cases,  however,  the  percen- 
tages show  a  marked  variability.  Where  Fox  mythology  shows  the 
presence  of  twenty-four  per  cent  of  explanatory  tales,  Pawnee  shows 
forty-two.  Where  Eskimo  shows  seventeen,  Koryak  shows  only  four. 
It  would  perhaps  be  dangerous  to  infer  that  all  of  these  variations 
correspond  to  actual  difference  in  the  mental  processes  of  the  various 
groups  of  people  concerned.  They  may  be  due,  at  least  in  part,  to  the 
personal  peculiarities  of  the  informants  from  whom  the  stories  were 
obtained,  or  to  the  literary  style  or  the  interest  of  the  recorder  or  the 
translator.  There  is,  however,  one  general  tendency  exhibited  in 
the  tabulation,  which  I  believe  we  may  consider  to  represent  a  real 
fact  in  American  folk-lore.  I  refer  to  the  fact  that  the  arctic  myth- 
ologies are,  on  the  whole,  deficient  in  explanations.  Since  this  point 
is  brought  out  in  connection  with  all  the  arctic  peoples  considered 
(Eskimo,  Chukchee,  and  Koryak),  and  since  the  number  of  explana- 
tions shows  a  steady  decrease  as  we  pass  from  south  to  north,  especially 
along  the  Pacific  coast,  where  our  material  is  most  reliable,  I  regard 
it  as  at  least  probable  that  we  are  here  dealing  with  a  real  characteristic 
of  the  mythologies  in  question. 

It  might  be  possible  to  ascribe  the  absence  of  explanations  in  a 
certain  portion  of  our  printed  sources  to  the  failure  of  investigators 
to  record  them.  This  would  of  course  do  away  with  the  problem 
altogether.  In  view  of  certain  features  of  the  tabulation,  however,  I 
am  inclined  to  regard  this  contingency  as  unlikely.  It  will  be  seen,  for 
example,  that  in  all  the  cases  where  the  results  are  based  on  a  small 
number  of  tales,  the  percentage  of  explanations  runs  very  high.  On 
the  other  hand,  where  the  results  in  the  tabulation  are  based  on  large 
and  presumably  exhaustive  collections  of  tales,  the  percentages  are, 
as  a  rule,  very  much  lower.  In  other  words,  the  explanatory  type  of 
tale  seems  to  be  the  first  type  to  be  recorded.  I  suspect,  moreover, 
that  the  ordinary  investigator  is  interested  in  the  explanations,  if 
anything,  more  than  the  native  informant  is.  I  think  it  safe  to  con- 
clude that  the  scarcity  of  explanations  in  the  tabulation  represents  a 
real  phenomenon,  and  not  mere  accident. 

In  view  of  the  irregularities  in  the  tabulation,  of  which  we  can  give 
no  really  satisfactory  account  except  in  certain  instances,  perhaps  the 


«* 


Folk-Tales  of  the  North  American  Indians.  27 

best  way  to  arrive  at  a  conclusion  would  be  to  work  out  a  general 
average  for  the  results  obtained.  If  we  take  the  average  of  the  various 
per  cents,  we  arrive  at  a  general  average  of  approximately  thirty-six 
per  cent.  We  may  say  with  a  fair  degree  of  accuracy,  perhaps,  that,  s 
if  a  hundred  typical  American  tales  are  taken  at  random,  about  thirty- 
six  of  them  will  be  found  to  involve  explanations.  From  the  material 
so  far  considered,  I  am  tempted  to  draw  the  conclusion  that,  in  the 
folk-literatures  we  are  considering,  explanatory  tales  are  not  proved 
to  be  conspicuous  by  their  actual  number.  Certainly  there  is  a  large 
part  of  folk-lore  which  is  not  at  the  present  time  explanatory. 

The  additional  point  is  to  be  made  that  in  a  very  large  number  of 
cases,  perhaps  in  the  greater  part  of  them,  the  explanations  are  brought 
in  quite  casually.  From  the  places  they  occupy  in  a  given  tale,  and 
the  manner  of  their  appearance,  they  seem  to  be  chance  features,  put 
in  for  good  measure,  or  for  other  reasons,  perhaps,  which  are  not  con- 
cerned directly  with  the  plot.  To  illustrate  this  point,  I  might  call 
attention  to  the  tabulation  of  the  familiar  Dog-Husband  story  on  pp. 
28-30.  The  total  number  of  episodes  which  make  up  the  story  in  its 
fullest  form  are  arranged  in  series  at  the  top  of  the  tabulation.  The 
incidents  which  are  present  in  the  version  belonging  to  any  particular 
tribe  have  been  shown  by  writing  the  name  of  the  tribe  in  the  appro- 
priate column.  A  blank  space  at  any  point  in  the  line  devoted  to 
any  tribe  or  version  indicates  that  the  incident  which  is  represented 
by  that  space  is  lacking.  The  explanations  involved  are  shown  in 
bold-face  type  in  the  position  which  they  really  occupy  in  the  table. 
The  irregularity  of  the  place  of  occurrence,  relative  to  the  other  in- 
cidents of  the  tale,  is  quite  as  noticeable  as  are  the  inconsistencies  in 
the  explanations  themselves.  I  believe  that  any  one  who  looks  over 
the  table  will  get  the  impression,  as  the  present  writer  does,  that  the 
explanations  are  merely  casual  in  the  tale,  and  are  brought  out  where- 
ever  the  story  seems  to  fit  certain  problems  which  the  story-teller  has  in 
mind.  A  similar  tabulation  might  be  worked  out,  I  believe,  for  almost 
any  mythical  tale,  though  the  present  one  is  an  excellent  illustration. 
The  distribution  of  explanations  through  the  versions  of  any  given 
tale  seems  to  be  the  result  of  chance. 

In  connection  with  our  second  problem,  several  points  accordingly 
become  evident.  The  actual  number  of  tales  with  an  explanatory 
function  is  not  overwhelming.  In  some  mythologies  it  is  extremely 
small.  Whether  or  not  these  tales  have  dropped  off  explanations 
they  may  once  have  had,  is  a  point  that  will  be  taken  up  presently. 
In  the  mean  time  the  present  state  of  folk-lore  is  one  in  which  the 
explanation  is  certainly  not  the  matter  of  prime  interest  in  tales.  The 
explanation  in  explanatory  tales  is  manifestly  a  casual  phenomenon 
now,  whatever  is  true  of  the  past. 


28 


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Folk-Tales  of  the  North  American  Indians.  31 

We  have  seen  also  that  the  number  of  explanations  in  present-day 
folk-lore  has  the  appearance  merely  of  being  relatively  large.  In  some 
cases  it  seems  probable  that  a  folk-lore  assumes  an  explanatory  com- 
plexion through  the  interpretation,  not  of  the  native  informant,  but  of 
the  civilized  investigator.  It  must  be  remembered  that  our  material 
has  been  favorably  selected  with  regard  to  explanatory  tales.  There  is 
no  question  but  that  the  typical  investigator  would  rather  record  tales 
which  involve  explanations  than  those  without.  This  tendency  is 
reflected  in  the  fact,  shown  above,  that  every  collection  which  includes 
a  small  number  of  tales  shows  an  extremely  high  percentage  of  tales 
with  explanatory  endings.  If  an  investigator  is  successful  in  making 
his  collections1  complete,  the  proportion  of  explanatory  tales  dimin- 
ishes. In  regard  to  the  second  problem,  therefore,  How  important  are 
the  explanations  in  folk-tales  ?  it  may  be  inferred  that  the  element  of 
explanation  is  not  of  primary  significance. 


IN  THAT  PART  OF  MYTHOLOGY  WHICH  CONSISTS  OF  EXPLANATORY  TALES, 
IS  THE  EXPLANATION  THE  BASIS  OF  THE  STORY? 

It  is  well  to  refer  again  at  this  point  to  the  tabulations  already  con- 
sidered, which  show  what  primitive  tales  explain.  We  see  by  examin- 
ing the  table,  that,  so  far  as  stories  are  told  with  intent  to  explain, 
some  groups  or  tribes  have  one  purpose  in  view,  others  quite  a  differ- 
ent one.  For  example,  the  Pawnee,  the  Blackfoot,  the  Arapaho,  and 
the  Kwakiutl  feel  themselves  obliged  to  account,  above  everything,  for 
certain  ceremonial  institutions.  I  regard  this  as  a  most  important 
point.  More  explanations  in  these  cases  refer  to  ceremonies  than  to 
any  other  one  thing  in  the  lives  of  the  people.  Where  the  Fox  or  the 
Assiniboin,  and  most  American  tribes,  have  their  interest  centred  in 
animal  traits,  the  Pawnee  or  the  Kwakiutl  are  interested  most  of  all 
in  their  tribal  ceremonies,  even  the  traits  of  animals  coming  second.2 
Now,  is  it  possible  to  say  anything  about  the  relative  antiquity  of  these 
two  "interests"?  Which  developed  first  in  point  of  time, — the  inter- 
est in'  the  peculiarities  of  animals,  or  the  interest  in  highly  developed 
ceremonial  performances?  Fortunately  we  do  not  have  to  rely  purely 
on  internal  evidence.  We  know  from  outside  sources,  that  in  certain 
regions  of  America  there  has  been  a  comparatively  recent  develop- 
ment of  ceremonialism.  One  ritualistic  wave  has  in  historical  times 
submerged  the  Pawnee,  the  Arapaho,  and  the  Blackfoot,  and  is 
even  yet  spreading.  Its  centre  of  distribution  is  not  altogether 
easy  to  establish,  but  certainly  lies  somewhere  in  the  Central  Plains. 
Another  and  totally  different  ceremonial  wave   (quite  different  in 

1  See  p.  12. 

2  See  p.  25. 


/ 


\ 


32  Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore. 

details,  even  though  the  underlying  ideas  are  not  altogether  unlike) 
has  within  a  comparatively  recent  period  spread  outward  from  the 
Kwakiutl  of  Vancouver  Island.  Like  the  former  wave,  it  is  still  mak- 
ing itself  felt,  in  spite  of  the  breaking-down  of  aboriginal  institutions 
and  the  enrolment  of  many  natives  as  members  in  the  various  churches. 
In  both  regions,  on  the  North  Pacific  coast  as  well  as  on  the  Plains, 
the  tendency  toward  complicated  rituals  has  expressed  itself  in  the 
formation  of  secret  societies.  In  both  these  cases  the  initial  develop- 
ment of  the  ceremonial  impulse  took  place  just  before  our  history 
begins.  The  impulse  was  already  well  under  way  when  the  white 
man  arrived  on  the  scene.  Since  the  time,  however,  when  the  phe- 
nomenon first  came  under  observation,  the  diffusion  has  proceeded 
with  fair  regularity,  In  many  cases  we  know,  from  linguistic  and 
other  evidence,  exactly  how  it  proceeded.  Since  the  ritualistic  ideas 
have  spread,  if  they  did  not  originate,  largely  within  the  historic  period 
and  under  observation,  we  may  feel  rather  certain  that  the  entire 
impulse  in  its  present  form  is  not  of  any  great  antiquity.  Yet  the 
peoples'  mythology  is  now  primarily  concerned  with  this  ceremonial- 
ism. The  actual  content  of  the  Blackfoot  tales  is  not  altogether  differ- 
ent from  that  of  the  Grosventre  or  the  Fox.  The  same  sort  of  plots 
and  the  same  literary  devices  are  employed  in  both.  The  same  remark 
will  apply  to  the  Kwakiutl  and  their  neighbors,  who  have  in  some  degree 
the  same  tales.  Only  the  interest  in  ceremonials  is  peculiar  to  the 
Blackfoot  or  the  Kwakiutl.  On  the  not  unlikely  theory  that  the  most 
widely  diffused  phenomenon  is  the  oldest,  it  is  evident  that  the  story- 
making  impulse  is  older  than  this  ceremonial  interest.  It  would  be 
absurd  to  suppose  that  a  tale  told  by  the  Kwakiutl  to  explain  some 
recent  ceremony,  and  by  other  tribes  far  and  wide  for  purposes  merely 
of  recreation,  must  have  originated  in  connection  with  these  cere- 
monies. The  intent  in  telling  stories,  then,  has,  among  the  Kwakiutl 
of  Vancouver  Island  and  the  Pawnee  of  Nebraska,  actually  undergone 
a  revolution.  It  would  be  quite  arbitrary  to  assume  that  the  whole 
mythology  in  these  cases  has  developed  since  the  use  of  ceremonies. 
In  some  cases,  in  fact,  a  given  story  which  is  found  over  a  whole  region, 
and  must  be  of  relatively  great  age,  is  among  these  ritualizing  tribes 
turned  to  a  ceremonial  use.  In  the  case  of  the  tribes  cited,  then,  a 
new  sort  of  explanation  has  been  read  into  an  already  existing  mythol- 
ogy. This  case  is  an  instructive  example  of  how  a  whole  mythology 
may  be  re-interpreted. 

A  few  rather  curious  examples  of  re-interpretation,  having  a  cer- 
tain bearing  on  this  problem,  have  come  to  light  in  the  preceding 
study.  For  example,  the  horse  was  unknown  to  the  American 
Indians  until  introduced  by  the  whites  in  the  sixteenth  century. 
Naturally  the  animal  could  not  have  appeared  in  American  folk-lore 


Folk-Tales  of  the  North  American  Indians.  33 

before  that  date.  Upon  its  introduction,  it  became  a  factor  of  utmost 
importance  in  the  life  of  the  people,  and  the  natives  must  have  felt 
(and  in  many  cases  did  feel)  the  necessity  of  explaining  it.  If  tales 
originate  as  explanations,  it  would  seem  that  new  tales  would  have  y 
been  invented,  either  consciously  or  unconsciously,  to  explain  the 
horse.  So  far  as  I  know,  nothing  of  the  sort  happened.  One  mythol- 
ogy, the  Hopi,  contains  a  passage  which  explains  that  the  horse  was 
created  by  a  woman,  who  rubbed  scales  from  her  skin  and  transformed 
them  into  the  horse,  which  had  never  before  been  seen.  This  is  merely 
a  section  from  a  very  old  myth,  which  is  here  re-interpreted.  The 
Hopi  explain  a  number  of  things  by  saying  that  a  mythical  person 
created  them  by  rubbing  cuticle  from  his  skin,  and  making  it  into  the 
required  shape.1  This  is  apparently  a  very  old  element  in  their  folk- 
lore, much  older  than  the  possession  of  the  horse.  The  episode  of 
the  "cuticle-being"  — a  being  made  by  rubbing  scales  from  the  skin 
—  is  of  very  wide  distribution  in  America  outside  of  the  Hopi  tribe. 
An  old  mythical  incident  has  merely  been  revamped  in  this  case  to 
serve  as  an  explanation  of  a  new  thing.  Similarly,  the  Yuman  peoples 
tell  that  mankind  was  created  from  the  earth  of  a  certain  mountain 
(among  the  Diegueno  called  Wikami;  among  the  Mohave,  Avikwame).2 
This  tale  is  almost  certainly  older  than  their  contact  with  the  whites. 
The  modern  version  of  the  myth  among  the  Diegueno  adds  that  the 
mountain  was  half  of  dark-colored  earth,  and  half  of  light.  The 
Indian  tribes  were  created  from  the  dark  half;  the  Mexicans,  from 
the  other.8  Good  examples  abound  of  this  tendency  to  read  new 
meanings  into  old  passages.  For  example,  the  Arapaho  use  the 
Rolling-Skull  story  to  explain  the  railroad ; 4  and  a  Tlingit  informant 
imagines  that  the  story  of  the  supernatural  canoe,  which  requires  to 
be  fed  as  it  travels,5  refers  to  the  steamboat.  Certainly  these  are 
interesting  cases  where  the  call  for  explanations  resulted,  not  in  new 
tales,  but  in  re-interpretations  of  old  ones.  In  these  cases,  demon- 
strably, explanations  have  been  "read  in." 

Many  of  the  explanations  which  occur  in  North  American  tales  in 
their  present  form  are  therefore  only  associated  with  the  tales.  In 
answer  to  the  question,  How  does  this  association  arise?  we  might  say 
that,  after  a  tale  has  taken  a  given  form,  an  analogy  is  discovered, 
between  the  occurrences  which  the  tale  describes  and  the  facts  in 
nature  which  happen  to  strike  the  observer's  notice.  Under  such 
circumstances,  either  these  analogies  are  interpreted  as  proof  that  the 
tale  is  true,  or  else  the  tale  is  read  back  into  the  distant  past,  and  is 

1  Hopi,  pp.  6,  7,  8.  '  Mohave,  p.  315;  Yuma,  p.  326. 

»  Diegueno,  p.  302,  note.  4  Arapaho,  1,  p.  19.  note  3. 

*  Tlingit,  1,  p,  129,  note  a. 

VOL.    XXVII. NO.     IO3. 3. 


34  Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore . 

imagined  to  explain  such  natural  occurrences  as  fit  into  the  plot.  We 
may  assume  that  in  many  cases  a  given  tale  which  is  now  used  to 
explain  a  number  of  things,  has  merely  supplied  a  basis  for  the  recogni- 
tion of  analogies.  In  many  cases,  of  course,  the  analogy  between  a 
phenomenon  and  the  chance  arrangement  of  elements  in  any  certain 
story,  has  not  so  far  been  discovered  or  recognized.  In  these  cases 
we  may  find  a  rationalizing  belief  existing,  which  stands  alone,  secure 
in  its  own  vigor,  and  is  not  made  a  part  of  folk-tales.  Of  such  sort 
are  the  beliefs  in  the  thunder-bird,  or  the  eclipse-producing  monster 
referred  to  above.  Such  speculations  may  be  formulated  in  definite 
terms,  may  become  codified,  and  may  become  a  social  force  without 
ever  coming  into  association  with  novelistic  tales.  Such  formulated 
speculations  are  of  course  myths,  whatever  else  may  be  included 
under  that  title.  When  an  analogy  or  parallelism  is  discovered  be- 
tween such  an  idea  and  the  course  of  events  in  any  particular  folk-tale, 
I  think  the  result  would  be  one  of  the  explanatory  tales  that  we  have 
been  considering.  Certainly  new  facts  are  often  explained  by  noting 
analogies  in  old  tales. 

We  see,  therefore,  that  re-interpretation  is  a  factor  in  the  forma- 
tion of  explanatory  tales  which  must  be  taken  into  account.  The 
point  which  must  now  be  considered  is  whether  re-interpretation  can 
be  proved  to  operate  very  generally.  I  should  like  to  call  attention, 
in  this  connection,  to  certain  specific  tales  in  relation  to  which  re- 
interpretation  has  manifestly  taken  place.  There  has  been,  as  is  now 
well  known,  a  widespread  diffusion  of  tales  over  the  American  Con- 
tinent. The  result  is,  that  a  very  considerable  part  of  the  tales  known 
to  one  tribe  is  known  also,  sometimes  in  slightly  different  form, 
to  all  neighboring  tribes.  Perhaps  the  most  interesting  point  that 
comes  out  in  the  study  of  American  folk-lore  is  the  fact  that  a  tale 
can  travel  for  enormous  distances.1  In  some  cases  tales  have  wan- 
dered thousands  of  miles  from  what  we  must  consider  their  original 
home.  For  example,  certain  tales  are  common  to  the  natives  of 
eastern  Greenland  and  western  Alaska,  and  are  known  to  tribes  as 
far  south  as  the  Arkansas  River.2  A  given  tale  usually  radiates  out 
from  some  central  point,  or  centre  of  distribution,  losing  its  character 
little  by  little  in  direct  proportion  to  the  distance  from  this  centre. 
This  diffusion  of  tales  gives  us  some  very  interesting  phenomena,  and 
helps  to  shed  light  on  the  problem  of  the  possible  "  dropping-off  "  of  the 
explanatory  significance  of  tales.     In  looking  over  a  number  of  these 

1  Consult  Boas,  Indianische  Sagen  von  der  Nord-Pacifischen  Kiiste  Nord  Amerikas 
(Berlin,  1895). 

2  An  instance  is  the  story  of  the  girl  and  the  dog  (or  "dog-husband"),  mentioned 
above;  or  the  story  of  the  blind  hunter  deceived  by  his  wife  or  step-mother.  A  general 
idea  of  the  diffusion  of  these  and  certain  other  tales  may  be  obtained  by  consulting  the 
tabulations  on  pp.  41-50. 


Folk-Tales  of  the  North  American  Indians.  35 

diffused  tales,  it  becomes  evident  that  very  profound  discrepancies 
exist  in  the  explanations  which  are  attached  to  a  given  tale  by  different 
peoples,  or,  for  that  matter,  by  different  informants  in  a  tribe.  It  is 
easily  proved  that,  wherever  a  tale  exists  in  a  number  of  renditions  or 
versions,  the  explanations  tend  to  show  great  variability.  While  the 
various  tales  are  changed  somewhat  at  the  hands  of  different  people, 
the  explanations  change  much  more  rapidly  and  much  more  radically. 
This  point  is  perhaps  worth  illustrating  in  some  detail.  In  the  example 
below,  one  story  is  traced  through  its  various  renditions.  With  each 
version  or  repetition  is  listed  the  explanation  which  appears  in  connec- 
tion with  it.  The  tale  here  examined  is  a  familiar  one  in  North  Amer- 
ica, and  occurs  in  almost  identical  form  as  far  south  as  Patagonia.1 

EXAMPLE   ILLUSTRATING   VARIATIONS   IN   EXPLANATIONS.2 

Rolling  Rock.  —  A  trickster  offends  a  bowlder  by  depriving  it  of  a  present 
already  given  it  (by  offering  to  run  it  a  race,  etc.).  The  rock  pursues  him  up 
and  down  hill  for  a  long  distance,  finally  rolling  on  him  and  pinning  him  to 
the  earth.  The  trickster  appeals  to  certain  birds,  who  break  the  rock  and 
set  him  free.     He  then  exhibits  ingratitude. 

Micmac  (1,  p.  317) Flies. 

Blackfoot  (2,  p.  165) Bull-bat's  mouth. 

Cree  (2,  p.  296) A  creek's  name. 

Shoshoni  (1,  p.  264) The  Rocky  Mountains. 

Flathead  (1,  p.  245) White  tip  on  fox's  tail. 

Pawnee  (1,  p.  260) Rocks  are  hard ;  dead  coy- 
otes are  found. 

Pawnee  (1,  p.  106) Stones  in  creek-beds. 

Arapaho  (1,  p.  68) Bull-bat's  mouth. 

Arapaho  (1,  p.  159) The  Pleiades. 

Assiniboin  (1,  p.  120) No  explanation. 

Shoshoni  (1,  p.  263) No  explanation. 

Ute  (1,  p.  260) No  explanation. 

Cree  (1,  p.  210) No  explanation. 

Ankara  (1,  p.  147) No  explanation. 

Pawnee  (1,  p.  446) No  explanation. 

Jicarilla  (1,  p.  234) No  explanation. 

—  Trickster  is  seized  and  held  by  rock ;  freed  by  birds. 
Assiniboin  ( I,  p.  114) White  spots  on  the  wings  of 

a  certain  bird. 

—  Boy  hero  shoots  rock  which  pursues  and  kills  people. 
Jicarilla  (1,  p.  208) Black  spots  on  a  certain  rock. 

1  Spears,  The  Gold  Diggings  of  Cape  Horn,  p.  159. 

2  The  tribes  are  given  on  the  left;  the  explanations,  on  the  right.     Additional  tabula- 
tions illustrating  this  point  will  be  found  arranged  alphabetically  on  p.  41. 


2,6  Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore. 

Directing  our  attention  for  a  moment  to  this  tabulation,  the  follow- 
ing facts  become  evident.  Of  sixteen  versions  of  the  story,  all  sub- 
stantially the  same  in  outline,  as  illustrated  by  the  abstract  (dis- 
regarding for  a  moment  the  sixteenth  version,  which  shows  certain 
points  of  difference),  five  have  no  explanations  at  all.  It  is  possible 
that  these  five,  as  suggested  above,  have  lost  an  original  explanatory 
significance  which  they  may  have  had.  Let  us  turn,  then,  to  the 
remaining  ten  versions,  and  see  whether  it  is  possible  to  decide  what 
that  original  significance  may  have  been.  The  rather  curious  fact 
comes  out,  that  there  are  eight  totally  distinct  matters  explained  in 
the  remaining  versions  of  this  tale.  The  question  which  then  presents 
itself  is,  Can  any  one  of  these  eight  explanations  be  considered  the 
original  one,  in  connection  with  which  the  story  took  form?  It  would 
certainly  be  impossible,  on  the  basis  of  the  present  evidence,  to  deter- 
mine which,  if  any,  is  the  original.  Furthermore,  it  is  absolutely  self- 
evident  that  the  same  complicated  tale  cannot  have  been  independently 
invented  each  time  an  explanation  was  called  for,  nor  to  explain  eight 
different  things.  It  is  obvious,  therefore,  that  at  least  seven  of  the 
versions  represent  a  corruption  or  re-interpretation  of  the  original 
tale.  We  can  without  fear  of  question  say  that  seven  of  these  eight 
explanations  have  been  added  in  some  way  or  other  to  a  tale  with 
which  they  have  no  genetic  connection,  to  which  they  do  not  belong. 
This  tabulation  shows,  then,  that  it  is  possible  for  a  tale  to  pass  from 
V  one  tribe  to  another  and  to  pick  up  explanations  in  the  process. 

The  additional  material  on  pp.  41-50  shows,  moreover,  that  the  story 
of  the  Rolling  Rock  is  not  peculiar  in  this  regard.  A  great  many 
other  tales  show  exactly  the  same  phenomenon.  For  example,  the 
story  of  the  Dancing  Birds  exists  in  twenty-one  versions.1  The  expla- 
nations associated  with  it  include  such  disconnected  topics  as  (1)  the 
awkward  gait  of  the  duck,  (2)  the  red  eyes  of  the  turkey,  (3)  the  fact 
that  turtles  do  not  bite,  and,  (4)  the  touchwood  on  birch-trees.  A 
total  of  eleven  explanatory  passages  refer  to  five  unrelated  topics. 
The  story  of  the  Eye- Juggler  —  an  extremely  picturesque  tale,  in 
which  certain  creatures  have  the  power  of  taking  out  their  eyes  and 
playing  games  with  them  —  exists  in  several  forms.  Considering  the 
versions  of  one  form  merely,1  we  see  that  they  explain  a  number  of 
quite  different  things,  —  owl's  eyes,  mole's  blindness,  the  marks  on 
cottonwood-bark,  and  a  place-name.  One  would  suppose,  in  regard 
to  some  of  these,  that  the  plot  of  the  story,  connected  as  it  is  with 
eyes,  acted  as  a  suggestion,  and  that  various  animals  with  peculiar 
eyes  (such  as  owl  and  mole)  tended  to  become  associated  with  the 
story.     What  the  logical  connection  is,  however,  between  the  given 

1  See  p.  44- 


Folk-Tales  of  the  North  American  Indians.  37 

plot  and  such  a  non-optical  matter  as  the  marks  on  cottonwood-bark,1 
seems  to  be  quite  beyond  discovery. 

The  tabulations  on  pp.  41-50,  therefore,  illustrate,  I  believe,  as 
well  as  anything  could,  the  lack  of  connection  that  sometimes  becomes 
apparent  between  a  given  story  and  the  various  explanations  that  may 
appear  in  connection  with  it.  In  almost  all  cases  where  several 
versions  of  a  story  exist,  some  will  explain  one  thing,  some  another, 
and  some  nothing  at  all.  The  mere  absence  of  explanations  in  con- 
nection with  certain  versions  of  a  story  might  be  accounted  for,  per- 
haps, on  the  ground  that  they  had  dropped  off;  but  the  presence  of 
so  many  unrelated  explanations,  or  explanations  of  unrelated  topics, 
with  one  and  the  same  story,  certainly  demands  a  quite  different 
explanation. 

The  particular  stories  represented  in  the  tabulations  under  dis- 
cussion have  of  course  been  selected  for  purposes  of  illustration. 
The  tabulations  were  designed  primarily  to  include  some  of  the  most 
widely  known  tales,  which,  because  they  are  widely  known,  exist  in 
the  greatest  number  of  forms  or  versions.  The  possibility  that  the 
explanations  associated  with  a  tale  will  be  widely  variant,  increases 
of  course  with  the  number  of  versions  which  can  be  examined.  It  is 
perhaps  only  necessary  to  say,  that,  wherever  a  tale  exists  in  several 
versions,  the  same  phenomenon  is  to  be  expected.  A  tabulation,  to 
show  all  the  cases  where  this  has  happened  in  American  folk-lore, 
would  have  to  include,  from  the  present  indications,  over  half  of  all 
the  material  in  existence.  It  is  obviously  impossible  to  represent 
such  a  body  of  facts  in  one  set  of  tabulations.  Moreover,  the  returns 
at  the  present  time  are  not  nearly  full  enough  to  render  possible  a 
tabulation  that  would  be  absolutely  complete,  even  if  such  a  tabula- 
tion were  desirable.  It  may  be  said,  however,  that  every  single  tale 
so  far  examined,  falling  within  the  requirements  of  our  problem,  shows 
this  instability  of  explanations,  either  in  the  fact  that,  in  some  of  its 
versions,  explanations  are  altogether  lacking,  or,  in  most  cases,  that 
they  differ  from  one  another.  Tabulations  illustrating  this  point 
could  be  increased  almost  without  limit.  The  writer  feels  quite  sure 
that  variance  in  explanations  is  a  fundamental  trait  of  American 
folk-lore. 

There  are  some  cases  where  the  opposite  would,  at  least  on  first 
consideration,  seem  to  be  true.  That  is  to  say,  some  tales  exist,  the 
plot  of  which  would  almost  imply  that  a  certain  explanation  was  had 
in  view  when  the  plot  was  devised.  I  should  like  to  give  an  example 
or  two  of  this.  The  Fox  Indians  recount  a  story  which  deals  with  an 
encounter  between  opossum  and  skunk.  Skunk,  who  is  very  sly, 
convinces  opossum  that  his  own  tail  is  a  snake.  As  he  springs  away 
in  alarm,  his  tail  of  course  follows  him.     He  dashes  away,  running  so 

1  See  the  fourth  entry  under  "  Eye- Toys,"  p.  44- 


38  Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore. 

fast,  in  trying  to  escape,  that  the  fur  is  all  worn  off  his  tail  by  friction 
with  the  ground.  The  conclusion  of  the  story  is,  "That  is  why 
opossum  has  such  a  wretched  tail  with  no  fur  on  it."  One  would  be 
almost  inclined  to  admit  that  the  Indian  myth-maker  here  noted 
opossum's  naked  tail,  conspicuously  different  from  that  of  other 
animals,  and  set  to  work  to  explain  it.  The  tale  fits  the  facts  so  nicely, 
that  there  would  seem  to  be  almost  necessarily  a  relation  of  cause  and 
effect.  Even  here,  however,  the  explanation  is  not  necessarily  a  part 
of  the  tale.  When  we  examine  the  Hopi  version  of  the  story,1  we  find 
that  the  victim  is  no  longer  opossum  with  his  unfledged  tail,  but 
coyote,  an  animal  with  a  beautiful  brush.  Coyote,  in  this  latter 
version,  is  tricked  by  having  an  artificial  tail  affixed  to  him;  and  in 
running  away  from  it  he  sets  the  prairie  on  fire.  The  plot  is  evidently 
the  same  at  bottom.  The  telling  of  this  story  has  nothing  to  do 
primarily  with  the  poverty  of  fur  on  any  animal's  tail,  though  it  is 
quite  appropriate  for  such  a  purpose.  The  Koryak  of  Kamchatka 
tell  a  similar  story,2  also  without  explanatory  features.  In  this  tale, 
fox  tricks  wolf  by  tying  a  number  of  objects  to  his  tail,  and  wolf 
kills  himself  by  trying  to  run  away  from  them.3 

Even  where,  as  in  this  casejthe  character  of  a  story  seems  to  imply  that 
it  was  invented  with  the  purpose  of  explaining  some  particular  thing,  the 
apparent  indissolubility  of  the  story  and  the  explanation  can  often  be 
//shown  to  be  really  a  matter  of  superficial  association  merely.  Perhaps 
the  most  convincing  example  of  all  is  the  following.  The  Ojibwa  tell 
a  story  4  of  a  contest  between  an  old  man  living  amid  the  snow  and  a 
young  visitor  from  the  South.  They  engage  in  a  contest  of  powers, 
the  old  man  attempting  to  freeze  his  guest,  the  young  man  enduring 
without  complaint.  The  old  man  finally  gives  up,  and,  as  Schoolcraft 
recounts  the  story,  melts  and  disappears.  The  whole  is  interpreted 
by  Schoolcraft  as  an  allegory  of  summer  and  winter.  The  tale  would 
certainly  be  appropriate  for  explaining  why  winter  is  not  eternal, 
especially  as  other  American  tribes  feel  that  this  is  a  point  which  must 
be  explained.5  The  Arapaho  have  a  very  similar  story  about  a  young 
man  who  has  a  cold-enduring  contest  with  a  white  owl.6  The  white 
owl  in  this  story  has  control  over  the  blizzard,  or  is  perhaps  a  personi- 
fication of  it.  The  boy,  when  successful  in  withstanding  the  freezing 
power  of  the  blizzard,  gets  certain  privileges  from  the  owl,  just  as 
heroes  in  many  of  the  Plains  myths  get  supernatural  power  from 
various  animals.  But  the  tale  as  told  by  the  Arapaho  has  no  connec- 
tion with  the  seasons.  Certainly  the  mere  fact  that  an  explanation  is 
apropos  in  a  tale  does  not  mean  that  the  two  always  appear  in  com- 

1  Hopi,  p.  1 86.  *  Or  perhaps  a  version  of  the  same  story. 

3  Koryak,  p.  189.  4  Ojibwa,  p.  96.     Compare  Abnaki,  p.  134. 

6  Compare  Shuswap,  p.  671;  Micmac,  1,  p.  99.  6  Arapaho,  p.  304. 


Folk-Tales  of  the  North  American  Indians.  39 

pany,  nor  does  it  mean  that  the  explanation  is  the  original  partner 
in  the  combination. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  nature  of  the  connection  between  a  tale  and 
its  appendages  is  in  many  cases  open  to  entire  misconstruction.  What 
might  be  taken  for  an  aetiological  narrative  is  often  only  a  narrative 
with  an  incident  added,  to  prove  that  the  story  is  true.  What  might 
be  and  often  is  taken  for  explanation  is  in  many  cases  only  proof. 
This  fact,  which  has  been  commented  on  by  other  writers,1  is  well 
illustrated  by  the  theft-of-fire  myth.  In  this  tale,  as  told  in  western 
America,  animals  set  out  to  steal  fire,  which  is  guarded  by  some  half- 
malign  being  living  at  a  distance.  In  carrying  off  the  fire,  as  the  story 
runs,  the  successful  animals  are  scorched,  leaving  various  marks  on 
them.  Thus,  in  the  Shoshoni  story,2  ground-squirrel,  who  carries  the 
fire,  has  a  spot  on  his  breast  burned  black.  This  spot  is  of  course  still 
to  be  seen  on  all  squirrels.  The  Haida 3  say  that  deer  was  the  success- 
ful thief,  and  that  his  tail  is  short  because  it  was  burned  off  at  that 
time.  The  same  tale  is  told  elsewhere  with  different  explanations 
associated  with  it,  all  of  them  connected  with  the  fact  that  the  animal 
was  burned  or  scorched.  Among  these  explanations  are  the  scraggly 
neck  of  deer,4  hawk's  short  beak,5  deer's  red  legs,6  and  the  black 
spots  on  the  soles  of  rabbit's  feet.7  The  purpose  of  the  tale  is  not  by 
any  means  to  account  for  these  markings,  but  rather,  if  anything,  to 
account  for  the  presence  of  fire  among  men.  The  incident  about  the 
animal  in  each  case  is  put  in  so  that  the  story  will  carry  conviction. 
The  implication  is  this:  "If  you  don't  believe  it,  look  at  the  deer 
(hawk,  rabbit,  coyote),  and  you  will  see  the  very  marks  left  on  him 
by  the  stolen  fire."  In  the  well-known  tale  already  quoted,  bear  and 
chipmunk  quarrel  about  whether  there  is  to  be  day  and  night,  or 
continual  night.  Bear  becomes  incensed,  and  pursues  chipmunk,  who 
dashes  into  a  hollow  log.  Bear's  claws  rake  down  his  back,  leaving 
the  stripes  which  are  to  be  seen  to-day.  Here  the  real  motive  of 
the  tale  is,  if  anything,  to  explain  the  succession  of  day  and  night. 
The  incident  about  the  stripes  is  put  in  to  show  that  the  occurrence 
really  took  place.  It  is  only  a  fair  guess  that  many  of  the  so-called 
explanations  are,  in  similar  fashion,  after- thoughts,  put  in  by  way  of 
proof.  If  many  of  our  tales  are  considered  from  this  point  of  view,  it 
is  actually  impossible  to  tell  from  the  context  what  was  the  original^/ 
implication  of  the  passage,  aetiological  or  evidential. 

An  example  might  make  this  clear.     In  the  course  of  the  winter  cere- 
monial of  the  Kwakiutl  Indians  of  Fort  Rupert,  in  1 89s,8  certain  dancers 

1  Lowie,  "The  Test  Theme  in  North  American  Mythology"  (this  Journal,  vol.  xxi, 
p.  123). 

8  Shoshoni,  p.  246.  »  Haida,  1,  p.  135.  4  Tlingit,  B,  p.  314. 

8  Tlingit  1,  p.  10.  •  Maidu,  1,  p.  165.  7  Chilcotin,  p.  15. 

»  For  account  of  the  ceremony  and  the  attendant  speeches  see  Kwakiutl,  2,  p.  $44. 


40  Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore. 

came  in  dressed  as  killer-whales.  In  connection  with  their  perform- 
ance, it  was  related  that  the  Transformer  once  visited  their  locality, 
and,  as  the  result  of  certain  difficulties  between  the  human  inhabitants 
and  the  killer- whales,  transformed  part  of  the  whales  into  birds,  the 
rest  into  sand.  "For  that  reason,"  concluded  the  speaker,  "the  sand 
of  this  beach  gives  forth  a  sound  when  it  is  stepped  upon." 

A  few  moments  later  in  the  same  ceremony,  the  next  company  of 
dancers  came  in  dressed  as  birds.  As  the  accompaniment  of  their 
dance,  the  speaker  recounted  the  well-known  story  of  "The  Painting 
of  the  Birds."  The  crows,  according  to  his  oration,  when  the  Trans- 
former was  painting  the  birds  with  their  present  gaudy  colors,  wished 
to  be  made  especially  brilliant,  and  so  waited  till  the  very  last.  By 
that  time  the  paint  was  used  up,  and  so  the  Transformer  covered  them 
with  charcoal:  hence  their  color  to-day.  Then  the  birds  danced  out 
of  the  cave  where  the  painting  took  place.  The  speaker  concluded 
his  oration  with  the  following  words:  "If  you  do  not  believe  what  I 
say,  come  and  visit  me,  and  I  will  show  you  the  place."  The  point 
I  wish  to  make  is,  that  these  two  stories  are  precisely  of  the  same  sort. 
They  were  related  by  the  same  individual  in  connection  with  the  same 
ceremony,  under  precisely  similar  circumstances.  The  real  fact  is,  that 
they  both  "explained  "  the  ceremony  then  under  progress.  I  believe 
that  it  would  be  highly  artificial  to  say  that  the  native  speaker's 
intention  when  he  recounted  the  second  of  these  tales  was  different 
from  what  it  was  when  he  recounted  the  first ;  yet  the  form  of  the  first 
tale  is  such  that  we  should  have  to  classify  it  as  aetiological,  while  the 
conclusion  of  the  second  is  obviously  evidential.  In  other  words,  on 
this  occasion  the  form  which  the  given  tale;  took  was  largely  determined 
by  chance  and  by  the  speaker's  feeling  for  literary  effect.  I  am  inclined 
to  think  this  tendency  has  operated  very  generally  in  giving  our  North 
American  tales  their  present  form;  exactly  how  generally,  it  is  of 
course  impossible  to  say,  in  that  we  have  no  insight  into  the  native 
story-teller's  mental  attitude.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  this  tendency  has 
made  the  number  of  "explanatory"  tales  seem  larger  than  is  really 
the  case. 

SUMMARY. 

It  seems  to  me,  therefore,  that  we  have  a  fairly  definite  answer  to 
each  of  our  problems.  As  regards  the  evolution  of  folk-tales,  we  may 
make  the  following  points.  Folk-tales  in  their  present  form  do  not 
show  any  traces  of  having  taken  shape  from  the  contemplation  of  the 
heavenly  bodies.  We  saw  that  the  interest  of  primitive  man  really 
centres  in  the  things  immediately  around  him  in  his  environment. 
This  is  rendered  fairly  certain  both  by  a  consideration  of  what  is 


Folk-Tales  of  the  North  American  Indians. 


4i 


explained  and  who  are  the  actors  and  characters.  Even  where 
nature  does  enter  into  mythologies,  the  desire  for  explaining  does  not 
seem  to  be  the  moving  factor.  The  explanations,  on  the  contrary, 
seem  to  be  purely  secondary  to  the  story-plots.  Explanatory  tales  do 
exist,  and  some  tales  may  be  based  on  the  desire  to  explain.  Such  tales, 
however,  do  not  by  any  means  constitute  the  bulk  of  traditional  litera- 
ture to-day.  In  attempting,  moreover,  to  decide  which  part  of  mythol- 
ogy, the  explanatory  or  the  non-explanatory,  is  the  older  and  "  original' ' 
part,  we  must  be  governed  by  the  consideration  that  many  explana- 
tory tales  are  not  so  by  nature,  but  through  accident  and  re-inter- 
pretation. We  can  observe  the  operation  of  re-interpretation  in  the 
case  of  certain  mythologies  as  a  whole.  There  are  also  a  considerable  \/ 
number  of  cases  where  a  definite  tale  is  demonstrably  older  than  the 
thing  it  is  now  supposed  to  "explain."  The  study  of  "disseminated" 
tales,  where  a  plot  is  diffused  over  a  large  area  with  relatively  little 
change,  the  explanations  meanwhile  working  in  or  dropping  off,1  would 
seem  to  indicate  that  this  priority  of  the  tale  with  reference  to  the 
explanations  is  a  very  widespread  phenomenon.  In  other  words,  as 
far  as  the  present  form  of  our  mythical  tales  in  North  America  is  con- 
cerned, the  story  is  the  original  thing,  the  explanation  an  after-thought. y 
The  ease  with  which  this  may  be  demonstrated  in  a  great  number  of 
cases,  coupled  with  the  absence  of  evidence  to  the  contrary,  justifies 
the  conclusion  that  in  North  America,  generally  speaking,  tales  do  not 
originate  as  explanations. 

TABULATIONS    INDICATING    THE    VARIOUS    EXPLANATIONS    WHICH   ARE 
ASSOCIATED  WITH  A  NUMBER  OF  WELL-KNOWN  TALES  AND  EPISODES.2 

Arrow  -  Ladder.  —  Hero     Tillamook  (1,  p.  138) .  .  .  .Woodpecker's  red  head. 

shoots  an  arrow  upward,     Achomawi  (1,  p.  166). .  .  .(Mountains;  traits  and  cries  of 
striking     the     sky,     into  animals.) 

which   the   arrow   sticks.     Kwakiutl  (3,  p.  127) No  trees  on  mountains;  tops  of 

Then  he  shoots  a  second,  mountain  crags  are  cracked. 

which    strikes    the    nock     Comox  (S,  p.  64) Sun  and  moon. 

of  the  first;  and  a  third,     Bella  Coola  (1,  p.  96) .Goat     and     ermine    are    white; 

which  strikes  the  second ;  animals  are  lighter  underneath. 

gradually  forming  a  chain.     Kwakiutl  (4,  p.  87) Yellow  cedar  has  dead  tops. 

He     clambers     up     this,     Haida  (1,  p.  78) "Taxet's  Trail." 

finally  reaching  the  sky-     Fraser  River  (S,  p.  31). .  .Snail  is  boneless,  moves  slowly, 
country.  Comox  (S,  p.  65) Ducks  are  not  blind. 

Heiltsuk  (S,  p.  215) Mussels  are  black. 

Tsimshian  (S,  p.  278) People  are  respectful  to  sun. 

Quinault  (1,  p.  108) Fish-hawk  has  good  eyes;  snail 

is  blind. 

Comox  (S,  p.  68) No  explanation. 

Nootka  (S,  p.  117) No  explanation. 

Kwakiutl  (1,  p.  157) No  explanation. 

Newettee  (S,  p.  173) No  explanation. 

Tsimshian  (1,  p.  88) No  explanation. 

Kathlamet  (1,  p.  11) No  explanation. 

Haida  (1,  p.  355) No  explanation.  V 

1  Consult  Boas,  "Growth  of  Indian  Mythologies"  (this  Journal,  vol.  ix,  p.  1). 
1  Explanations  which  are  very  loosely  associated  with  the  story-plot  are  placed  in 
parentheses. 


42 


Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore. 


Arrow-Ladder  (Conclud- 
ed).—  Hero  climbs  to 
heaven  by  means  of  a 
single  arrow. 

Beaver  and  Porcupine.  — 
Beaver  and  Porcupine, 
two  friends,  begin  to 
trick  each  other.  Beaver 
abandons  Porcupine  in 
the  middle  of  a  lake. 
Porcupine,  in  revenge, 
induces  Beaver  to  climb  a 
tree  far  inland,  and  leaves 
him  there. 

—  Beaver  and  Coyote. 

Blind  Dupe.  —  A  blind 
hunter  and  his  relatives 
are  starving.  When  game 
approaches,  he  draws  his 
bow,  and,  asking  his  wife 
(mother-in-law,  sister)  to 
aim  the  arrow  for  him, 
makes  a  successful  shot. 
Informed  that  the  shot 
went  wild,  he  goes  hungry, 
while  the  relative  eats  the 
meat  alone.  The  hunter's 
sight  is  restored  by  a 
water-fowl  who  dives  into 
a  lake  with  him.  He  then 
can  revenge  himself. 


Koryak  (i,  p.  293) No  explanation. 

Koryak  (1,  p.  304) No  explanation. 

Yana  (2,  p.  214) Moon  halo. 

Tlingit  (1,  p.  220) Broken  appearance  of  tree-bark 

Tlingit  (1,  p.  44) Friends  "fall  out." 

Ts'ets'aut,  (2,  p.  43) Beaver  lives  in  lakes;  Porcupine 

does  not  come  out  in  frosty 

weather. 

Haida  (1,  p.  44) No  explanation. 

Tsimshian  (1,  p.  73) No  explanation. 

Tsimshian  (S,  p.  305). .  .  .No  explanation. 

Hare  (P,  p.  234) No  explanation. 

Shuswap  (1,  p.  655) No  explanation. 

Jicarilla  (1,  p.  231) No  explanation. 

Eskimo  (1,  p.  99) Narwhal. 

Eskimo  (3,  p.  168) Narwhal. 

Eskimo  (3,  p.  169) Narwhal. 

Chilcotin  (1,  p.  35) Loon's  white  collar. 

Carrier  (1,  p.  171) Loon's  white  spots  and  collar. 

Kwakiutl  (3,  p.  447) A  certain  rock. 

Assiniboin  (i,  p.  204). .  .  .No  explanation. 

Arapaho  (1,  p.  285) Wives  are  sometimes  deceitful. 

Tlingit  (1,  p.  104) No  explanation. 

Haida  (2,  p.  212) No  explanation. 

Loucheux  (P,  p.  84) No  explanation. 

Hare  (P,  p.  226) No  explanation. 


Blood-Clot  Boy.  —  A  hero 
develops  from  a  clot  of 
blood,  and  is  secretly 
reared  by  an  old  couple. 
He  revenges  them  on  a 
warrior  who  abuses  them, 
destroys  monsters,  and 
does  wonderful  feats. 

—  Blood-Clot  Girl. 

Buffalo  Wife.  —  A  man 
takes  as  his  wife  a  female 
buffalo,  who  assumes  the 
form  of  a  woman  and 
comes  to  live  with  his 
tribe.  Later  she  becomes 
piqued,  and  with  her  child 
assumes  the  form  of  a 
buffalo  again,  and  leaves 
her  husband.  The  hus- 
band follows  his  wife  and 
child  to  the  buffalo  vil- 
lage. 

Burning  Cannibal.  —  A 
cannibal  or  other  monster 
is  overcome  in  a  struggle 
and  burned  up  in  a  fire. 
The  ashes,  blown  about 
by  the  wind,  turn  into 
creatures  or  different  ob- 
jects. 


Blackfoot  (1,  p.  53) The  "Smoking  Star." 

Maidu  (1,  p.  59) Cockle-burrs. 

Blackfoot  (2,  p.  29) No  explanation. 

Dakota  (1,  p.  101) No  explanation. 

Arapaho  (1,  p.  298) No  explanation. 

Omaha  (1,  p.  48) No  explanation. 

Grosventre  (1,  p.  82) No  explanation. 

Pawnee  (i,  p.  80) No  explanation. 

Arapaho  (1,  p.  320) Crow  is  black. 

Blackfoot  (1,  p.  117) Bull-and-Horn  and  Matoki  So- 
cieties. 

Blackfoot  (2,  p.  104) The  Buffalo  Dance. 

Arapaho  (1,  p.  395) Elk  live  in  the  mountains;  the 

buffalo  can  be  eaten. 

Pawnee  (1,  p.  284) Flutes. 

Arikara  (1,  p.  94) Ring-and- javelin  game;  the  Buf- 
falo Ceremony. 

Crow  (1,  p.  289) No  explanation. 

Wichita  (1,  p.  199) No  explanation. 

Arapaho  (1,  p.  389) No  explanation. 

Tlingit  (1,  p.  276) (Cannibal.)     Mosquitoes. 

Tlingit  ( 1,  p.  214) (Arrow-headed  boy.)     Gnats. 

Tlingit  (i,  p.  93) (Wolverene-man.)     Gnats   and 

mosquitoes. 

Haida  (2,  p.  265) (Brain-sucker.)     Mosquitoes. 

Comox  (S,  p.  165) (Cannibal.)     Mosquitoes. 

Comox  (S,  p.  64) (Monster  devil-fish.)     Devil-fish, 

certain  rocks  and  eddies. 


Folk-Tales  of  the  North  American  Indians.  43 

Burning  Cannibal.  —  Con-    Kwakiutl  (4,  p.  18) (Cannibal    bear.)        Mosquitoes 

eluded.  and  horse-flies. 

Dakota  (2,  p.  197) (Fiendish  woman.)  Women  can- 
not kill  people  by  magic. 

Pawnee  (2,  p.  239) (Spider-woman.)  Spiders;  rheu- 
matism. 

Pawnee  (2,  p.  240) (Spider- woman.)     Tree-frogs. 

Arapaho  (1,  p.  297) (Magician  father-in-law.)    White 

clay. 

Cheyenne (Magician  father-in-law.)  "Dia- 
monds" and  beads. 

Zufii  (1,  p.  364) (Tarantula-man.)  Small  taran- 
tulas are  found  everywhere. 

Blackfoot  (1,  p.  153) (Woman  who  sharpens  her  leg.) 

No  explanation. 

Shoshoni  (1,  p.  291) (Cannibal.)     No  explanation. 

Assiniboin  (1,  p.  183).  .  .(Fiendish  girls.)    No  explanation. 

Grosventre  (1,  p.  90) (Magician    father-in-law.)       No 

explanation. 

Koryak  (1,  p.  296) (Hero  eats  himself  up.)  No  ex- 
planation. 

Skokomish  (S,  p.  58) (Cannibal.)     No  explanation. 

Child    and    Cannibal.  —     Kwakiutl  (1,  p.  431) The  Dzonoqwa  Dance. 

Children  are   carried   off     Kwakiutl  (1,  p.  87) Ornaments  worn   by   adolescent 

by  a  cannibal,  but  kill  the  girls, 

cannibal  and  escape.  Heiltsuk  (S,  p.  224) Frogs  (?). 

Bella  Coola  (S,  p.  249) ...  No  explanation. 

Kwakiutl  (1,  p.  354) No  explanation. 

Kwakiutl  (3,  p.  117) No  explanation. 

Skokomish  (S,  p.  57) No  explanation. 

—  A    crying    child    is     Haida  (1,  p.  328) Ditches  at  Kaisun. 

taken    underground  by  a 
supernatural  being. 

Cliff-Ogre.  —  An  ogre  in-     Chinook  (1,  p.  21) (Traits  of  different  tribes.) 

duces  people  to  walk  on  a     Arapaho  (1,  p.  302) Buzzard's  bare  head. 

cliff,  and  kicks  them  over     Navaho  (1,  p.  122) (Traits  of  different  tribes;  birds 

the   edge    with    his    foot  of     prey;     Rocky     Mountain 

when    they    do    so.     His  sheep.) 

children  eat  the  bodies  of     Zufii  (1,  p.  76) Owls;  falcons. 

the  victims.  Micmac  (1,  p.  90) No  explanation. 

Shoshoni  (i,  p.  260) No  explanation. 

Shoshoni  (1,  p.  262) No  explanation. 

Jicarilla  (1,  p.  203) Birds  (?). 

Zufii  (1,  p.  373) Two  stars;    Milky  Way;  Rattle- 
snake   has    yellow    poisonous 
fangs. 
Wintun  (1,  p.  131) Ground-squirrel. 

Crane-Bridge.1  —  A     wo-  Kathlamet  (1,  p.  118). . .  .Robin  does  not  eat  people. 

man  has  commerce  with  Chilcotin  (1,  p.  13) (Sea-gull.) 

an  animal,  and  is  killed  by  Cree  (2,  p.  71) Masses  of  foam  on  river. 

her  husband.     Her  chil-  Ojibwa  (r,  p.  267) White  fish. 

dren  run  away,  pursued  Shuswap  (i,  p.  650) Crane's  peculiar  appearance. 

by  her  skull,  which  rolls  Dakota  (1,  p.  195) No  explanation. 

along  the  ground.     When  Pawnee  (1,  p.  117) No  explanation. 

the   children   come   to   a  Assiniboin  (1,  p.  178).  ..  .No  explanation. 

river,   they  appeal   to   a  Micmac  (1,  p.  164) No  explanation. 

bird  to  take  them  across.  Assiniboin  (1,  p.  143).  .  .  .No  explanation. 

He   does   so,   and,   when  Quinault  (1,  p.  119) No  explanation. 

asked  the  same  favor  by  Caddo  (1,  p.  650) Duck's  gaudy  colors. 

the    skull,     destroys    it. 
Boys  kill  sister's  lover. 

—  Deer  children  escape     Shoshoni  (1,  p.  254) No  explanation. 

from  Bear. 

1  See  Rolling  Skull. 


44 


Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore. 


Dancing  Birds.  —  A  trick- 
ster induces  a  number  of 
birds  to  dance  around 
him,  keeping  their  eyes 
closed.  The  penalty  for 
opening  the  eyes  is  that 
they  will  become  red.  As 
the  birds  dance,  the  trick- 
ster wrings  their  necks 
one  by  one.  One  of  the 
dancers  grows  suspicious, 
opens  his  eyes,  and  gives 
the  alarm.  The  rest  es- 
cape. 


Deserted  Children.  — 
The  children  of  a  camp 
offend  a  chief  by  disturb- 
ing him  (calling  names, 
abusing  his  child).  He 
orders  the  camp  to  be 
moved  and  the  children 
to  be  left  behind.  They 
are  later  "helped"  by  a 
dog  (wolf,  superior  being), 
and  in  turn  disown  the 
parents  who  abandoned 
them. 

Disintegration.1  —  Hero 
comes  all  to  pieces,  joint 
by  joint  and  limb  by  limb, 
but  remains  alive. 


Drilling  Fire  in  Mon- 
ster.2 —  Hero  is  swal- 
lowed by  a  monster; 
kindles  a  fire  in  the  mon- 
ster's interior  with  a  fire- 
drill,  and  so  causes  his 
death. 

Eye-Toys.  —  Trickster  sees 
certain  birds  amusing 
themselves  by  throwing 
their  eyes  up  into  trees 
(racing  their  eyes  around 
a  mountain),  and  causing 
them  to  come  back  into 
their  sockets.  The  trick- 
ster asks  to  be  taught  the 
trick,  but,  in  spite  of 
warning,  does  it  once  too 
often,  and  his  eyes  fail  to 
return.  He  is  obliged  to 
replace  them  with  a  sub- 
stitute. 

1  Compare  Rolling  Skull,  p.  47. 


Cree  (1,  p.  212) Touchwood  on  birch-trees. 

Ojibwa  (1,  p.  30) Diver's  black  feet,  short  legs. 

Menominee  (1,  p.  162). .  .Duck's  red  eyes. 

Menominee  (1,  p.  204) .  .  .Diver's  red  eyes,  absence  of  tail. 

Fox  (1,  p.  283) Diver's  red  eyes,  tuft  on  head. 

Cheyenne  ( 1,  p.  165) Duck's  red  eyes,  crooked  back 

and  neck. 
Arapaho  (1,  p.  59) Indians  live    on  game;  coyotes 

live  by  stealing. 

Dakota  (1,  p.  113) Wood-duck's  red  eyes. 

Assiniboin  (1,  p.  114).  .  .Turtles  do  not  bite. 
Omaha- Ponca  (1,  p.  67).  .Turkey  has  red  eyes. 

Grosventre  (1,  p.  71) No  explanation. 

Crow  (1,  p.  288) No  explanation. 

Osage  (1,  p.  9) No  explanation. 

Pawnee  (1,  p.  265) No  explanation. 

Assiniboin  (1,  p.  111). .  .  .No  explanation. 

Pawnee  (2,  p.  134) No  explanation. 

Dakota  (2,  p.  122) No  explanation. 

Jicarilla  (1,  p.  203) No  explanation. 

Abnaki  (1,  p.  186) No  explanation. 

Nenenot  (1,  p.  327) No  explanation. 

Blackfoot  (1,  p.  117) Bull-and-Horn  and  Matoki  So- 
cieties. 

Arapaho  (1,  p.  293) Embroidery  designs  and  tech- 
nique. 

Blackfoot  ( 1,  p.  138) No  explanation. 

Assiniboin  (1,  p.  142). .  .  .No  explanation. 

Blackfoot  (2,  p.  250) No  explanation. 

Grosventre  (1,  p.  104)..  .  .No  explanation. 

Omaha-Ponca  (1,  p.  83).. No  explanation. 

Micmac  (1,  p.  46) No  explanation. 


Bella  Coola  (1,  p.  99) .  .  .  .People  limp  to-day. 
Bella  Coola  (2,  p.  275) .  .  .Deer  exist. 

Yana  (2,  p.  203) (Rolling-Skull  story.)    A  bathing- 
place  with  magic  powers. 

Kwakiutl  (3,  p.  167) No  explanation. 

Koryak  (1,  p.  309) No  explanation. 

Kwakiutl  (1,  p.  350) Weather  is  good  for  four  days  at 

a  stretch. 

Kwakiutl  (4,  p.  15) Mosquitoes  and  horse-flies. 

Bella  Coola  (2,  p.  256) .  .  .Stars. 

Haida  (1,  p.  362) No  explanation. 

Nez  Perce  (1,  p.  19) Catbird's  red  eyes,  habits. 

Arapaho  (1,  p.  51) Owl's  yellow  eyes. 

Arapaho  (1,  p.  51) Mole's  blindness. 

Arapaho  (1,  p.  51) Marks  on  cottonwood-bark. 

Jicarilla  (1,  p.  229) Marks  on  coyote's  cheeks.  Plums. 

Navaho  (1,  p.  90) Coyote's  yellow  eyes. 

Hopi  (1,  p.  95) A  place-name. 

Zuiii  (1,  p.  268) Coyote's  yellow  eyes. 

Blackfoot  (2,  p.  153) No  explanation. 

Blackfoot  (2,  p.  153) No  explanation. 

Assiniboin  (1,  p.  117) No  explanation. 

Jicarilla  (1,  p.  70) No  explanation. 

Sia  (1,  p.  153) No  explanation. 


2  See  also  Swallowed  Hero,  and  Jonah. 


Folk-Tales  of  the  North  American  Indians. 


45 


Eye-Toys   {Concluded).  —    Quinault  (i,  p.  92) Snail  is  blind,  crow  black. 

Snail  lends  his  eyes  to  his 
blind  wife,  Crow. 

—  Snail  lends  his  eyes     Quinault  (1,  p.  108) Snail    is   blind,  fish-hawk   keen- 
to     Fish-Hawk     (arrow-  eyed. 

ladder).     Hero  takes  out     Koryak  (1,  p.  182) No  explanation. 

his  eyes  and  puts  them     Koryak  (1,  p.  186) No  explanation. 

back.  Koryak  (1,  p.  321) No  explanation. 

Found-in-Grass.  —  A  wo-  Blackfoot  (1,  p.  40) Buffalo-tails,     Medicine      Lodge 

man  is  killed  by  a  guest  and  songs. 

whom   she   entertains   in  Shoshoni  (1,  p.  282) Snow  on  mountains;  why  people 

spite  of  warning,  and  her  die  of  old  age. 

unborn   child   is   thrown  Crow  (1,  p.  303) (Snakes  have  flattened  heads.) 

out  of  doors.  He  survives,  Arapaho  (l,  p.  342) Twins. 

and    grows   up    perfectly  Pawnee  (1,  p.  91) No  monsters. 

wild.       Later  he  is  cap-  Omaha-Ponca  (1,  p.  21 5).. No  explanation. 

tured      by      his     father,  Grosventre  (1,  p.  77) No  explanation. 

tamed,      and      performs 
many  wonderful  deeds. 

Growing  Rock.1   —   Hero     Bella  Coola  (2,  p.  256).  .  .No  explanation. 

takes  refuge  on  a  rock,     Yana  (2,  p.  37) Certain  split  rocks;  grizzly-bears. 

which  he  by  singing  causes 
to  grow,  thus  escaping. 

Growing  Tree.  —  Heroine  Grosventre  (1,  p.  190).. .  .Moon-spots. 

is  induced  to  climb  a  tree  Arapaho  (i,  p.  337) Snakes  strike  at  men. 

in  pursuit  of  a  porcupine.  Arapaho  (1,  p.  338) A  certain  star;  people  have  the 

The  tree  suddenly  begins  bow. 

to  grow,  so  that  she  can-  Arapaho  (1,  p.  329) Moon-spots.     (Buffalo  are   used 

not    climb    down    again.  for  food.) 

She  is  carried  up  to  the  Shoshoni  (1,  p.  268) No  explanation. 

sky.  Grosventre  (1,  p.  100).. .  .No  explanation. 

Crow  (1,  p.  299) No  explanation. 

—  Growing  tree  carries     Blackfoot  (1,  p.  46) A  certain  star. 

hero  to  the  sky.*  Blackfoot  (1,  p.  53) A  certain  star. 

—  Growing  tree  brings     Jicarilla  (1,  p.  193) People  live  on  this  earth. 

people   from    the   under- 
world. 

—  People  are  trapped     Ts'ets'aut  (2,  p.  37) A  certain  red  cliff. 

on  a  growing  rock.  Shuswap  (1,  p.  623 Indian-hemp  bushes. 

Arapaho  (1,  p.  79) No  explanation. 

Jicarilla  (1,  p.  224) No  explanation. 

Imitating    Host.  —  Trick-     Ojibwa  (1,  p.  23) Chipmunk's  cough. 

ster    is    entertained    by     Omaha  (1,  p.  557) Beaver's  cleft  toe. 

various  animals,  who  pro-     Hopi  (1,  p.  209) Coyote  fat  is  good  for  ant-bites. 

duce    food    by    magical     Kwakiutl  (4,  p.  147) Raven's    black    and    shrivelled 

means.     He  tries  to  imi-  feet. 

tate  them  when  they  re-     Nootka  (S,  p.  106) Raven's  black  feet  and  feathers. 

turn  his  visit,   and   fails     Thompson  (1,  p.  41) Coyote's  shrivelled  paws. 

miserably.  Tsimshian  (1,  p.  46) Old  men's  hands  are  bent. 

Quinault  (1,  p.  85) Not  much  fat  on  bear's  feet,  nor 

meat  on  back;  bluejay's  tuft. 

Micmac  (1,  p.  300) No  explanation. 

Shoshoni  (1,  p.  265) No  explanation. 

Pawnee  (1,  p.  239) No  explanation. 

Navaho  (1,  p.  87) No  explanation. 

Hopi  (1,  p.  202) No  explanation. 

Chinook  (1,  p.  178) No  explanation. 

1  The  episode  is  psychologically  related  to  the  Growing-Tree  incident  below. 
1  Compare  the  Star-Husband  story,  p.  49- 


46 


Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore. 


Imitating      Host.  —  Con- 
cluded. 


Jonah.1  —  A  hero  is  swal- 
lowed by  an  enormous 
fish,  but  remains  alive. 
By  working  on  the  mon- 
ster's heart  he  kills  it,  it 
drifts  ashore,  and  he  es- 
capes when  the  animal  is 
eaten  or  cut  up. 

Magic  Flight  {Obstacle 
Type). — A  rolling  skull 
pursues  and  destroys  peo- 
ple. In  escaping  from  it 
the  heroes  of  the  tale 
throw  certain  objects  be- 
hind them,  which  turn 
into  obstacles.  These 
delay  the  skull,  and  they 
succeed  in  making  their 
escape. 

—  A  man  kills  his  wife 
and  cuts  off  her  head,  on 
account  of  her  adultery 
with  a  snake.  Her  head 
pursues  her  children,  who 
escape  by  throwing  ob- 
stacles behind  them, 
which  delay  the  skull. 

—  Unfaithful  husband 
kills  his  wife,  and  cuts  off 
her  head.  This  head  pur- 
sues her  children,  who  are 
magically  lifted  over  sta- 
tionary objects,  the  skull 
following  with  difficulty. 

—  People  escape  from 
a  monster  or  ogre  through 
a  magic  flight,  causing 
forests,  thickets,  canyons, 
mountains,  rivers  or  lakes, 
or  other  natural  objects, 
to  spring  up  behind  them. 


Magic  Flight  {Bait  Type). 
—  A  skull  pursues  people, 
who  delay  it  by  causing 
attractive  objects  to  ap- 
pear behind  them. 


Comox  (S,  p.  76) No  explanation. 

Newettee  (S,  p.  177) No  explanation. 

Bella  Coola  (S,  p.  245). .  .No  explanation. 

Bella  Coola  (1,  p.  93) No  explanation. 

Chilcotin  (1,  p.  18) No  explanation. 

Haida  (2,  p.  184) No  explanation. 

Kwakiutl  (3,  p.  237) No  explanation. 

Koryak  (1,  p.  315) No  explanation. 

Ojibwa  (1,  p.  21) Names  of  the  squirrel  and  gull. 

Jicarilla  (1,  p.  201) Gill-slits  on  fishes. 

Chukchee  (1,  p.  164) No  explanation. 

Tlingit  (1,  p.  91) No  explanation. 

Haida  (1,  p.  131) No  explanation. 

Pawnee  (2,  p.  121) Seventh  star  in  the  Pleiades. 

Arapaho  (1,  p.  13) (Sky,  earth,  lodges.)     Railroad. 

Arapaho  (1,  p.  278) (Lakes  and  rivers.) 

Grosventre  (1,  p.  63) No  explanation. 

Pawnee  (2,  p.  447) No  explanation. 


Cree  (2,  p.  71) The  Rocky  Mountains. 

Cree  (1,  p.  202) The  sturgeon. 

Assiniboin  (1,  p.  177) ....  (Ursa  Major.) 

Carrier  (1,  p.  4) (The  earth.) 

Dakota  (2,  p.  195) No  explanation. 

Cheyenne  (1,  p.  185) No  explanation. 

Pawnee  (1,  p.  115) No  explanation. 


Eskimo  (3,  p.  197) Fog. 

Quinault  (1,  p.  116) Certain    rocks,    a    large    and    a 

small  one. 

Nootka  (B,  p.  99) Certain  mountains  and  lakes. 

Blackfoot  (1,  p.  70) Ursa  Major. 

Grosventre  (1,  p.  107) Ursa  Major. 

Chukchee  (1,  p.  40) No  explanation. 

Koryak  (1,  p.  257) No  explanation. 

Koryak  (1,  p.  187) No  explanation. 

Kwakiutl  (B,  p.  164) No  explanation. 

Heiltsuk  (B,  p.  224) No  explanation. 

Heiltsuk  (B,  p.  240) No  explanation. 

Bella  Coola  (B,  p.  268). .  .No  explanation. 

Ts'ets'aut  (1,  p.  260) No  explanation. 

Chinook  (1,  p.  78) No  explanation. 

Omaha  (1,  p.  293) No  explanation. 

Pawnee  (2,  p.  35) Sun,  moon,  the  spots  on  them. 

(The  Pleiades.) 


1  For  a  related  motive  see  Swallowed  by  a  Monster. 


Folk-Tales  of  the  North  American  Indians. 


47 


Magic  Flight  {Bait  Type,  Kathlamet  (i,  p.  118) Traits  of  certain  plants. 

Concluded).  —  A  monster  Maidu  (i,  p.  77) The  sun  does  not  harm  people. 

or  ogre  is  delayed  through 
the  same  device. 

Meat   Trick.  —  The  hero,  Assiniboin  (1,  p.  107) ....  Color  of  eagle's  head. 

in  order  to  capture  a  bird  Blackfoot  (2,  p.  147) Raven  is  black,  lives  by  hunting 

(or  to  capture  his  wild  about. 

brother),  changes  himself  Menominee  (1,  p.  203) ..  .Buzzard   has   a   bald   head   and 

into  a  carcass  or  into  a  bad  smell. 

piece  of  meat.  His  quarry  Omaha  (1,  p.  78) Buzzard's  head  is  bare  and  red. 

finally  comes  down,  along  Arapaho  (1,  p.  276) Crow  is  black.    (People  have  the 

with  the  other  birds,  to  buffalo.) 

feed.     The  hero  then  in-  Assiniboin  (1,  p.  146).  .  .  .No  explanation. 

stantly  assumes  his  proper  Arapaho  (1,  p.  302?) Buzzard's   bare  head  (Cliff-Ogre 

form     and     makes     the  story), 

capture. 

Rolling      Rock.   —   (See 
tabulation  on  p.  35.) 

Rolling   Skull1  {Disinte-  Yana  (1,  p.  203) A    certain    bathing-place    which 

gration  Type).  — A     man  has  magical  properties. 

comes  all  to  pieces,  leav-  Maidu  (4,  p.  189) People  go  crazy  sometimes. 

ing  nothing  of  himself  but  Koryak  (1,  p.  296) No  explanation. 

the  head  (eats  himself  up,  Maidu  (1,  p.  97) No  explanation. 

hands,  feet,  limbs,  and 
body,  the  head  remaining 
alive).  He  becomes  an 
inhuman  prodigy. 

Rolling  Skull  {Rolling  Ob-  Chukchee  (1,  p.  18) Children  do  not  always  die  in 

ject   Type).  —  A  skull  or  infancy(?). 

other  object  (compare  the  Arapaho  (1,  p.  8) (Lakes  and  streams.)     Railroad. 

rolling-rock  story    on    p.  Eskimo  (3,  p.  255) No  explanation. 

35)     pursues    people    by  Blackfoot  (1,  p.  154) No  explanation. 

tumbling   over  and  over  Yana  (2,  p.  464) No  explanation. 

(by  flying  through  the 
air),  and  destroys  them. 

Scratch  Berries.  —  Trick-  Assiniboin  (1,  p.  127) ....  Coon's  hairless  rump. 

ster  eats  certain  berries,  Abnaki  (1,  p.  85) Gum  on  trees. 

in  spite  of  warning.     The  Grosventre  (1,  p.  69) No  explanation. 

berries  cause  him  to  expe-  Crow  (1,  p.  287) No  explanation. 

rience  an  unheard-of  itch- 
ing. 

Skin-Shifter.  —  Hero    or  Yana  (2,  p.  158) (Topography,  animal  habits.) 

heroine  kills  a  person,  re-  Koryak  (1,  p.  322) No  explanation. 

moves  the  skin  from  the  Haida  (1,  p.  no) No  explanation. 

corpse,  puts  it  on,  and  in  Haida  (1,  p.  137) No  explanation. 

this  disguise  assumes  the  Haida  (1,  p.  147) No  explanation. 

part  of  the  dead  person,  Shuswap  (1,  p.  676) No  explanation. 

deceiving  the  people.  Yana  (2,  p.  216) No  explanation. 

Shoshoni  (1,  p.  260) No  explanation. 

Zufii  (1,  p.  461) No  explanation. 

Skin-Shifter  {Old-Woman-  Pawnee  (2,  p.  45) Clam-shell. 

and-Daughter  Type).  — An  Pawnee  (2,  p.  506) No  explanation. 

old     woman     wishes     to  Eskimo  (3,  p.  185) No  explanation. 

marry  her  own  daughter's  Assiniboin  (1,  p.  157) ....  No  explanation, 
husband.     She    kills    her 
daughter,    puts    on    her 
skin,    but    is    discovered 
and  punished. 

1  Thirteen  versions  of  this  tale  have  already  appeared  on  p.  46,  under  the  caption  of 
the  Magic  Flight,  since  they  involve  that  incident  in  addition  to  the  Rolling-Skull  episode 
proper.  The  following  are  versions  of  the  story  which  do  not  involve  the  Magic  Flight. 
A  related  motive  to  the  present  one  will  be  found  in  the  story  of  the  Rolling  Rock,  p.  35- 
With  the  disintegration  type  compare  the  disintegration  story  on  p.  44. 


48 


Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore . 


Skin-Shifter  {Sham-Doctor 
Type) .  —  Hero,  by  a  trick, 
wounds  water-monsters 
who  have  killed  and 
skinned  his  younger  bro- 
ther. He  meets  an  old 
woman  (or  old  man)  going 
to  doctor  the  sick  mon- 
sters. He  kills  this  doc- 
tor, puts  on  the  skin,  and 
pretends  himself  to  be  the 
doctor,  imitating  the  pro- 
per gait  and  song.  When 
he  approaches  the  sick 
people  to  treat  them,  he 
suddenly  kills  them  in- 
stead. 


Ojibwa  (i,  p.  37) Kingfisher's    white    medal    and 

tuft. 

Blackfoot  (1,  p.  152) Bears  and  rabbits  are  fat. 

Omaha  (1,  p.  241) (Wolf  and  deer  traits.) 

Cree  (2,  p.  74) No  explanation. 

Assiniboin  (1,  p.  147) .  .  .  .No  explanation. 
Menominee  (1,  p.  133) .  .  .No  explanation. 

Pawnee  (1,  p.  250) No  explanation. 

Shoshoni  (1,  p.  242) No  explanation. 


—  Hero  tricks  the  su-     Chukchee  (1,  p.  45) No  explanation. 

pernatural  beings  by 
wearing  an  enemy's  skin. 

Sky   Basket.     —  Woman  Yana  (1,  p.  407) A  certain  salt  spring. 

goes  crazy,  and  desires  to  Yana  (2,  p.  309) Black    bears    are    found    every- 

marry  her  younger  bro-  where. 

ther.     To     escape     from  Shasta  (1,  p.  165) Mountains;     animal     markings, 

her,  all  the  people  have  cries,  and  traits. 

themselves  drawn  up  to  Achomawi  (1,  p.  166) ...  .Mountains;    animal    traits    and 

the  sky  in  a  basket.    One  cries. 

of  them  looks  down,  how-  Maidu  (1,  p.  71) People  sometimes  go  crazy. 

ever,  and  they  are  all 
spilled,  falling  back  into 
their  blazing  home.  Some 
survive. 


Snaring     Sun. 


Hero 


snares  the  sun  by  setting 
a  noose  where  the  sun 
rises  in  the  morning.  To 
prevent  a  terrible  catas- 
trophe, the  sun  is  with 
great  difficulty  set  free. 

Son-in-Law  Tested.  — 
Hero  marries  the  daughter 
of  a  supernatural  being,  or 
a  Iman  fwith  supernatural 
power.  His  father-in-law 
receives  him  kindly,  but 
asks  him  to  do  certain 
things  which  involve  great 
danger.  The  hero  is  suc- 
cessful in  all  the  tests, 
and  finally  gets  the  best 
of  the  evil  father-in-law. 


Ojibwa  (1,  p.  239) Dormouse  is  of  small  size. 

Omaha  (1,  p.  14) Rabbit  has  yellow  shoulders. 

Chipewyan  (1,  p.  184).  .  .Mouse  is  yellow. 
Montagnais  (1,  p.  35). . .  .No  explanation. 
Menominee  (1,  p.  181).  .  .No  explanation. 

Fox  (1,  p.  79) No  explanation. 

Assiniboin  (1,  p.  140).  .  .  .No  explanation. 

Cheyenne  (1,  p.  177) Beads   and    diamonds   are   kept 

by  the  whites. 

Cree  (1,  p.  205) The  Whiskey  Jack. 

Maidu  (1,  p.  67) Thunder  does  not  kill  people. 

Wintun  (1,  p.  121) Ground-squirrel;  eel;     sun     and 

moon;  sky  colors. 

Yana  (1,  p.  281) Moon  and  stars. 

Chinook  (1,  p.  33) (Sturgeon;  bluejay.) 

Kwakiutl  (4,  p.  14) Numerous  devil-fish  at  Den- 
man's  Island. 

Micmac  (1,  p.  12) No  explanation. 

Assiniboin  (1,  p.  154).  .  .  .No  explanation. 

Assiniboin  (1,  p.  157) .  .  .  .No  explanation. 

Grosventre  (1,  p.  88) No  explanation. 

Omaha  (1,  p.  160) No  explanation. 

Carrier  (1,  p.  7) No  explanation. 

Chilcotin  (1,  p.  26) No  explanation. 

Kathlamet  (1,  p.  113). . .  .No  explanation. 

Tsimshian  (1,  p.  130) .  . .  .No  explanation. 

Nootka  (B,  p.  118) No  explanation. 

Nimkish  (B,  p.  136) No  explanation. 

Newettee  (B,  p.  171) No  explanation. 

Newettee  (B,  p.  198) No  explanation. 

Koryak  (i,  p.  114) No  explanation. 


Folk-Tales  of  the  North  American  Indians. 


Star  Husband.  —  Two  girls 
sleeping  out  at  night  no- 
tice two  stars,  and  wish 
that  they  could  marry 
them.  In  the  morning 
they  find  themselves  in 
the  sky-country,  with 
stars  for  husbands.  Be- 
coming homesick,  they 
escape  from  heaven  on  a 
rope. 

—  Woman,  lured  by  a 
porcupine,  is  carried  to 
the  sky  on  a  growing  tree, 
as  the  result  of  expressing 
a  wish  for  a  star  husband. 

Swallowed  by  a  Mon- 
ster.1 —  People  are  swal- 
lowed by  a  hill  (swamp, 
sucking-fish),  and  de- 
stroyed. The  hero  also 
has  himself  swallowed, 
cuts  the  monster's  heart, 
thus  killing  it,  and  revives 
the  people  who  have  died. 

Swing  Trick.  —  Old  wo- 
man who  wishes  to 
marry  her  daughter's  hus- 
band induces  the  young 
woman  to  swing  over  a 
pool  of  water.  She  then 
causes  the  swing  to  break, 
and  the  girl  falls  into  the 
water.  Here  she  is  mar- 
ried by  a  water-monster, 
but,  brought  to  the  surface 
to  nurse  her  human  baby, 
she  is  rescued. 

—  Magician  has  a 
water-monster  which  he 
feeds  through  the  swing 
trick 

—  Ogres  drown  people 
by  getting  them  to  swing. 

Toothed  Vagina.  —  Wo- 
man's vagina  is  armed 
with  teeth.  Hence  she 
causes  the  death  of  her 
husbands  and  lovers.  The 
hero,  by  being  warned 
beforehand,  breaks  the 
teeth  with  a  hard  object, 
thus  succeeding  where 
others  failed. 


49 


the 

Star; 


snail 


Pawnee  (3,  p.  197). 

Blackfoot  (1,  p.  58) People    have    the    turnip; 

digging-stick;  the  Pole 
songs  of  the  Sun  Dance. 

Dakota  (1,  p.  90) (Meadowlark's  song.) 

Quinault  (1,  p.  108) (Fish-hawk    is    keen-eyed, 

is  blind.) 

Micmac  (1,  p.  160) No  explanation. 

Grosventre  (1,  p.  100)..  .  .No  explanation. 

Pawnee  (1,  p.  60) No  explanation. 

Wichita  (1,  p.  298) No  explanation. 

Otoe  (1,  p.  199) No  explanation. 

Crow  (1,  p.  301). 


Blackfoot  (1.  p.  57) "Ghost"  dance. 

Hopi  (1,  p.  83) Small   ruins   scattered   over   the 

country. 

Blackfoot  (2,  p.  36) No  explanation. 

Grosventre  (1,  p.  85) No  explanation. 

Omaha  (1,  p.  34) No  explanation. 

Jicarilla  (i,  p.  200) No  explanation. 

Jicarilla  (1,  p.  210) Frog  (?). 

Fox  (1,  p.  103) Lynx  has  a  short  tail;  lynx  are 

not  eaten. 

Arapaho  (1,  p.  12) (Lakes,  rivers,  swings.) 

Cree  (1,  p.  205) No  explanation. 

Assiniboin  (1,  p.  157) ..  .No  explanation. 
Osage  (1,  p.  26) No  explanation. 


VOL.  XXVII. — NO.    I03 


Grosventre  (1,  p.  87) No  explanation. 

Blackfoot  (1,  p.  57) (A  certain  star.) 

Kwakiutl  (B,  p.  66) Sexual  intercourse  harmless  now. 

Kwakiutl  (1,  p.  95) (Dolphins;  deer.) 

Kwakiutl  (B,  p.  24) Footprints  in  a  rock  on  the  Lower 

Fraser;  crag  in  Harrison  River. 
Chilcotin  (1,  p.  13) Sexual  intercourse  with  Chilcotin 

women  now  innocuous. 

Shoshoni  (1,  p.  238) Different  hostile  tribes. 

Dakota  (2,  p.  198) Sexual  intercourse  now  harmless. 

Arapaho  (1,  p.  260) Vaginas  now  harmless. 

Pawnee  (1,  p.  35) No  toothed  vaginas  now. 

Kwakiutl  (4,  p.  238) No  explanation. 

Bella  Coola  (1,  p.  76). .  .  .No  explanation. 

Maidu  (1,  p.  69) No  explanation. 

Pawnee  (2,  p.  41) No  explanation. 

Wichita  (1,  p.  144) No  explanation. 

Jicarilla  (1,  p.  203) No  explanation. 

Chukchee  (1,  p.  72.) No  explanation. 

1  Compare  also  Jonah,  above. 
4. 


50  Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore . 

Toothed  Vagina  (Conclud-     Koryak  (i,  p.  116) No  explanation. 

ed).  —  Kala's    anus     has 
teeth. 

Tree-Refuge.  —  Heroes  in     Blackfoot  (i,  p.  109) Front-Tails  Society. 

running  away  from  pur-     Arapaho  (1,  p.  38) Buffalo  Woman's  Lodge. 

suing  buffalo  (deer,  etc.)     Arapaho  (1,  p.  158) Buffalo  have  short  horns. 

take    refuge    in    a    tree.     Arapaho  (1,  p.  160) (Pleiades.) 

They  are  discovered  (by     Arapaho  (1,  p.  394) Red  spots  in  a  certain  kind  of 

accident)  and  the  animals  wood, 

hook  the  tree  until  it  is     Pawnee  (1,  p.  111) (Blackbirds  perch  on  buffalo.) 

ready  to  fall.  Caddo  (1,  p.  50) Buffalo  do  not  eat  people. 

Shoshoni  (1,  p.  293) No  explanation. 

Grosventre  (i,  p.  102)...  .No  explanation. 

Zufii  (1,  p.  165) No  explanation. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

The  following  bibliography  includes  only  the  collections  of  myths 
referred  to  in  the  foregoing  pages.  References  to  general  works  are 
made  in  the  footnotes.  The  titles  below  are  grouped  under  the 
names  of  the  tribes  concerned  instead  of  directly  under  the  name  of 
the  author.  Two  miscellaneous  collections  of  myths  used  in  this  study, 
and  which,  because  they  are  miscellaneous,  cannot  be  included  under 
the  name  of  any  one  tribe,  are  Franz  Boas'  "Indianische  Sagen  von 
der  Nord-pacifischenKiiste  Nord  Amerikas"  (Berlin,  1895),  and  the 
"Traditions  Indiennes du  Canada  Nord-Ouest "  of  Emile  Petitot  (Alen- 
£on,  1887).     They  are  abbreviated  as  B.  or  Sagen,  and  P.,  respectively. 

Abnaki: 

C.  G.  Leland,  Algonquin  Legends  of  New  England.     Boston,  1885. 
Achomawi: 

R.   B.  Dixon,  Achomawi  and  Atsugewi  Tales  (Journal  of  American 
Folk- Lore,  vol.  xxi). 
Arapaho: 

Dorsey  and  Kroeber,  Traditions  of  the  Arapaho  (Field  Columbian 
Museum,  Anthropological  Series,  vol.  v). 
Arikara: 

G.  A.   Dorsey,  Traditions  of  the  Arikara   (Carnegie  Institution  of 
Washington,  Publication  17). 
Assiniboin: 

R.  H.  Lowie,  The  Assiniboine  (Anthropological  Papers  of  the  American 
Museum  of  Natural  History,  vol.  iv,  part  1). 
Bella  Coola: 

Franz  Boas,  The  Mythology  of  the  Bella  Coola  Indians  (Publications 
of  the  Jesup  North  Pacific  Expedition,  vol.  i). 
Blackfoot: 

1.  Wissler  and  Duvall,  Mythology  of  the  Blackfoot  Indians  (Anthro- 

pological Papers  of  the  American  Museum  of  Natural  History, 
vol.  ii,  part  1). 

2.  G.  B.  Grinnell,  Blackfoot  Lodge  Tales.     New  York,  1892. 
Caddo: 

G.  A.  Dorsey,  Traditions  of  the  Caddo  (Carnegie  Institution  of  Wash- 
ington, Publication  41). 


Folk-Tales  of  the  North  American  Indians,  51 

Carrier: 

Father  Morice,  Three  Carrier  Myths  (Transactions  of  the  Canadian 
Institute,  vol.  v). 
Cherokee: 

James  Mooney,  Myths  of  the  Cherokee  (Nineteenth  Annual  Report 
of  the  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology,  part  1). 
Cheyenne: 

A.   L.   Kroeber,   Cheyenne  Tales   (Journal  of  American   Folk-Lore, 
vol.  xiii). 
Chilcotin: 

Livingston  Farrand,  Traditions  of  the  Chilcotin  Indians  (Publica- 
tions of  the  Jesup  North  Pacific  Expedition,  vol.  ii). 
Chinook: 

Franz   Boas,    Chinook   Texts    (Smithsonian   Institution,    Bureau   of 
American  Ethnology,  Bulletin  20). 
Chukchee: 

W.  Bogoras,  The  Chukchee  (Publications  of  the  Jesup  North  Pacific 
Expedition,  vol.  viii). 
Cree: 

1.  Frank  Russell,  Explorations  in  the  Far  North.     University  of 

Iowa,  1898. 

2.  John  Maclean,  Canadian  Savage  Folk.     Toronto,  1896. 
Crow: 

S.   C.   Simms,   Traditions  of  the   Crows   (Field   Columbian   Museum, 
Anthropological  Series,  vol.  ii,  no.  6). 
Dakota: 

1.  S.  R.  Riggs,  Dakota  Grammar,  Texts  and  Ethnography  (U.  S.  Depart- 

ment of  the  Interior,  Contributions  to  North  American  Ethnology, 
vol.  ix). 

2.  Clark  Wissler,  Some  Dakota  Myths  (Journal  of  American  Folk- 

Lore,  vol.  xx). 

Diegueno: 

T.  T.  Waterman,  Religous  Practices  of  the  Diegueno  Indians  (Univer- 
sity of  California  Publications  in  American  Archaeology  and 
Ethnology,  vol.  viii). 

Eskimo: 

1.  H.  Rink,  Tales   and  Traditions   of  the   Eskimo.     Edinburgh   and 

London,  1875. 

2.  Franz  Boas,  The  Central  Eskimo  (Sixth  Report  of  the  Bureau  of 

American  Ethnology). 

3.  The  Eskimo  of  Baffin  Land  and  Hudson  Bay  (Bulletin  of  the 

American  Museum  of  Natural  History,  vol.  xv). 

4.  A.  L.  Kroeber,  Tales  of  the  Smith  Sound  Eskimo  (Journal  of  Ameri- 

can Folk-Lore,  vol.  xii). 

5.  Lucien  Turner,  The  Ethnology  of  the  Ungava  District,  Hudson 

Bay  (Ninth  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology). 

6.  E.   W.   Nelson,   The   Eskimo  about   Behring    Strait   (Eighteenth 

Report  of  the  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology). 
Flathead: 

Louisa  McDermott,  Myths  of  the  Flathead  Indians  of  Idaho  (Journal 
of  American  Folk-Lore,  vol.  xiv). 


52  Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore. 

Fox: 

William  Jones,  Fox  Texts  (Publications  of  the  American  Ethnological 
Society,  vol.  i). 
Grosventre: 

A.  L.  Kroeber,  Gros  Ventre  Myths  and  Tales  (Anthropological  Papers 
of  the  American  Museum  of  Natural  History,  vol.  i). 
Haida: 

1.  J.  R.  Swanton,  Haida  Texts  and  Myths  (Smithsonian  Institution, 

Bureau  of  American  Ethnology,  Bulletin  29). 

2.  Contribution  to  the  Ethnology  of  the  Haida  (Publications  of 

the  Jesup  North  Pacific  Expedition,  vol.  v). 

3.  Haida  Texts,  Masset  Series  (Publications  of  the  Jesup  North 

Pacific  Expedition,  vol.  x). 

Hopi: 

H.  R.  Voth,  Traditions  of  the  Hopi  (Field  Columbian  Museum,  Anthro- 
pological Series,  vol.  viii). 
Iroquois: 

Erminie  A.  Smith,  Myths  of  the  Iroquois  (Second  Annual  Report  of 
the  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology). 
Jicarilla: 

1.  James  Mooney,  The  Jicarilla  Genesis  (American  Anthropologist, 

vol.  xi). 

2.  P.  E.  Goddard,  Jicarilla  Apache  Texts  (Anthropological  Papers  of 

the  American  Museum  of  Natural  History,  vol.  viii). 
Kathlamet: 

Franz  Boas,  Kathlamet  Texts  (Smithsonian  Institution,  Bureau  of 
American  Ethnology,  Bulletin  26). 
Koryak: 

W.  Jochelson,  Religion  and  Myths  of  the  Koryak  (Publications  of  the 
Jesup  North  Pacific  Expedition,  vol.  vi). 
Kwakiutl: 

1.  Boas  and  Hunt,  Kwakiutl  Texts  (Publications  of  the  Jesup  North 

Pacific  Expedition,  vol.  iii). 

2.  Franz  Boas,  The  Social  Organization  and  Secret  Societies  of  the 

Kwakiutl  Indians  (U.  S.  National  Museum,  Report  for  1895). 

3.  Boas  and  Hunt,  Kwakiutl  Tales  (Columbia  University  Contribu- 

tions to  Anthropology,  vol.  ii). 

4.  Kwakiutl   Texts:  Second   Series    (Publications   of    the 

Jesup  North  Pacific  Expedition,  vol.  x). 

Maidu: 

1.  R.  B.  Dixon,  Maidu  Myths  (Bulletin  of  the  American  Museum  of 

Natural  History,  vol.  xvii). 

2.  Some  Coyote  Stories  from  the   Maidu   Indians    (Journal   of 

American  Folk-Lore,  vol.  xiii). 

3.  Stephen  Powers,  Tribes  of  California  (U.  S.  Geological  Survey, 

Contributions  to  North  American  Ethnology,  vol.  iii). 

4.  R.  B.  Dixon,  Maidu  Texts  (Publications  of  the  American  Ethno- 

logical Society,  vol.  iv). 
Menominee: 

W.  J.  Hoffmann,  The  Menominee  Indians  (Fourteenth  Annual  Report 
of  the  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology). 


Folk-Tales  of  the  North  American  Indians.  53 

Micmac: 

S.  T.  Rand,  Legends  of  the  Micmac.     New  York  and  London,  1894. 
Mohave: 

A.   L.   Kroeber,   Two   Myths  of  the   Mission   Indians  of  California 
(Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore,  vol.  xix). 
Montagnais: 

LeJeune,  Jesuit  Relations,  vol.  12. 
Navaho: 

Washington  Matthews,  Navaho  Legends  (Memoirs  of  the  American 
Folk-Lore  Society,  vol.  v). 
Nenenot  (Naskopi) : 

Lucien  Turner,   Ethnology  of  the  Ungava   District,   Hudson   Bay 
(Ninth  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology). 
Nez  Perce: 

H.  J.  Spinden,  Myths  of  the  Nez  Perce  Indians  (Journal  of  American 
Folk-Lore,  vol.  xxi), 
Ojibwa: 

H.  R.  Schoolcraft,  The  Myth  of  Hiawatha.     Philadelphia,  1856. 
Omaha  and  Ponca: 

J.  O.  Dorsey,  The  Cegiha  Language  (U.  S.  Geological  Survey,  Con- 
tributions to  North  American  Ethnology,  vol.  vi). 
Osage: 

G.  A.   Dorsey,  Traditions  of  the  Osage  (Field  Museum  of  Natural 
History,  Anthropological  Series,  vol.  vii). 

Pawnee  (Skidi): 

1.  G.  A.   Dorsey,  Traditions  of  the  Skidi  Pawnee  (Memoirs  of  the 

American  Folk-Lore  Society,  vol.  viii). 

2.  The  Pawnee:   Mythology  (Carnegie  Institution  of  Washington, 

Publication  59). 

3.  G.  B.  Grinnell,  A  Pawnee  Star  Myth  (Journal  of  American  Folk- 

Lore,  vol.  ii). 

Quinault: 

Livingston  Farrand,  Traditions  of  the  Quinault  Indians  (Publications 
of  the  Jesup  North  Pacific  Expedition,  vol.  ii). 
Shasta: 

R.  B.  Dixon,  Shasta  Myths  (Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore,  vol.  xxi). 

Shoshoni: 

R.  H.  Lowie,  The  Northern  Shoshone  (Anthropological  Papers  of  the 
American  Museum  of  Natural  History,  vol.  ii). 

Shushwap: 

James  Teit,  The  Shushwap  (Publications  of  the  Jesup  North  Pacific 
Expedition,  vol.  ii). 
Sia: 

Matilda  C.  Stevenson,  The  Sia  (Eleventh  Annual  Report  of  the 
Bureau  of  American  Ethnology). 

Skokomish: 

C.  Hill-Tout,  Notes  on  the  Skokomic  of  British  Columbia  (British 
Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science,  Reports,  1900). 


54  Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore. 

Thompson: 

i.  James  Teit,  Thompson  River  Indian  Traditions  (Memoirs  of  the 
American  Folk-Lore  Society,  vol.  vi). 

2.  Mythology  of    the  Thompson   Indians   (Publications  of  the 

Jesup  North  Pacific  Expedition,  vol.  viii). 
Tillamook: 

Franz  Boas,  Traditions  of  the  Tillamook  Indians  (Journal  of  American 
Folk-Lore,  vol.  xi). 
Tlingit: 

i.  J.   R.  Swanton,  Tlingit  Myths  and  Texts  (Bureau  of  American 

Ethnology,  Bulletin  39). 
2.  A.  Krause,  Die  Tlinkit-Indianer.     Jena,  1885. 
Ts'ets'aut: 

1.  Franz  Boas,  Traditions  of  the  Ts'ets'aut  (Journal  of  American 

Folk-Lore,  vol.  ix). 

2.  Traditions  of  the  Ts'ets'aut  (Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore, 

vol.  x). 

Tsimshian: 

Franz  Boas,  Tsimshian  Texts  (Smithsonian  Institution,   Bureau  of 
American  Ethnology,  Bulletin  27). 
Ute: 

1.  A.  L.  Kroeber,  Ute  Tales  (Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore,  vol.  xiv). 

2.  J.  Alden  Mason,  Myths  of  the  Uintah  Utes  (Journal  of  American 

Folk-Lore,  vol.  xxiii). 
Wichita: 

G.  A.   Dorsey,   Mythology  of  the  Wichita  (Carnegie  Institution  of 
Washington,  Publication  21). 
Wintun: 

Jeremiah  Curtin,   Creation   Myths  of   Primitive  America   (Boston, 
1898),  pp.  1-278. 
Yana: 

1.  Jeremiah  Curtin,  Creation  Myths  of  Primitive  America  (Boston, 

1898),  pp.  280-284. 

2.  E.   Sapir,   Yana  Texts   (University  of   California   Publications  in 

American  Archaeology  and  Ethnology,  vol.  ix). 
Yuma: 

J.  P.  Harrington,  A  Yuma  Account  of  Origins  (Journal  of  American 

Folk-Lore,  vol.  xxi). 
Zufii: 

1.  F.  H.  Cushing,  Zufii  Folk-Tales.     New  York,  1901. 

2.  Outlines  of  Zufii  Creation  Myths  (Thirteenth  Annual  Report 

of  the  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology). 

University  of  California, 
Berkeley,  Cal. 


VITA 


Birthplace 
Hamilton,  Missouri,  April  23,  1885. 

Education 

High  Schools  of  the  State  of  California,  1899-1903;  Univer- 
sity of  California,  1903-1907;  graduate  student,  Univ- 
ersity of  California,  1907-1909;  Fellow  in  Anthropology, 
Columbia  University,   1909-1910. 

Anthropological   Work 

Museum  Assistant,  University  of  California,  Museum  of 
Anthropology,  1907-1908;  Instructor  in  Anthropology, 
University  of  California,  1910-1913;  Assistant  Professor 
of  Anthropology,  University  of  California,  1913. 

Publications 

The  Religious  Practices  of  the  Diegueno  Indians.  Univer- 
sity of  California  Publications  in  American  Archaeology 
and  Ethnology,  volume  8. 

Analysis  of  the  Mission  Indian  Creation  Story.  American 
Anthropologist,  new  series,   1909. 

Phonetic  Elements  of  the  Northern  Paiute  Language. 
University  of  California  Publications  in  American 
Archaeology  and  Ethnology,  volume  10. 

The  Hudson  Bay  Eskimo.  In  Notes  on  New  Collections, 
American  Museum  of  Natural  History,  Anthropological 
Papers,  volume  4. 


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